The Motion Picture Association, the trade/lobbying group, which represents the major movie studios sent congratulations to President Trump on his 2nd Presidential victory. The MPA also congratulated new members of Congress - which now have Republican majorities.
This was a prudent but hypocritical move on the MPA's part given Hollywood's and mass media's very vigorous and outspoken distain and dislike of the MAGA movement and Trump on a personal level.
In their public statement, the MPA said, "We look forward to working with the Trump Administration on a wide range of important issues for the film, TV, and streaming industry. We commend everyone who worked this year to ensure fair elections and preserve our nation's legitimate democratic processes."
Wow! Why in the world would the MPA think the Trump administration would want to work on behalf of the movie industry? One can only surmise there are looming issues which impact MPA members and which the new Administration may not favor. So, getting out in front, at the get-go, maybe the best strategy for the MPA to take.
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For example, big media is very fearful that new appointees at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will approve the auctioning of the radio frequency bandwidth, now used free-of-charge by legacy networks (ABC, NBC, CBS) but which is valued in the billions of dollars. Or a change to the tax code which currently allows the immediate expensing of the full cost of film or TV production, rather than depreciating the expense over time.
On the flipside, the entertainment industry is a major U.S. export industry, to the tune of over $11 billion per year. Other countries, such as the U.K., India, Canada, and Australia, have subsidy programs geared toward building up their domestic film and TV industries. Additionally, due to high labor costs and excessive government regulations content production in the U.S. has the highest cost structure of any country, ergo U.S. based content production is down 40% from pre-pandemic levels.
The MPA is lobbying, not only for favored tax status and subsidies but also for controls on AI, copyright, and online piracy which are big negative impactors.
To all of this, I say, 'Good luck'. Most of the issues facing the major studios are self-inflicted. Embracing a very woke posture socially, voicing and pushing a rabid distain for MAGA, and agreeing to labor union wage and work demands over the last several years does not bode well for them now. Hollywood needs to do some heavy soul-searching and get out of the business of producing moral message movies and TV shows. Playing it straight and producing content people are interested in and eager to view - a real 180 is called for by MPA members.
By: Jim Lavorato
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