'American Idol' Ditches Gavin Newsom's California for Atlanta in Latest Blow to Hollywood Production

The long-running competition series American Idol will be shipping production from Los Angeles to Atlanta for its 25th season.

The state of Georgia currently offers a 30 percent tax credit for unscripted and reality television productions that spend a minimum of $500,000. Fremantle co-produces the show alongside Sony Pictures Television 19 Entertainment.

According to TheWrap, California’s expanded production tax credit has brought 170 films and TV shows to the state, it still “hasn’t halted the decline in on-location shooting in Los Angeles as the number of shoot days in the second quarter of 2026 fell 12% year-over-year.”

“Only 4,711 shoot days were recorded this past quarter, down from the 5,394 recorded in the second quarter of 2025 and the 5,121 recorded in the previous quarter,” it added. “In all, the quarter remains a steep 36% below the five-year average. For a comparison beyond that average, 8,632 shoot days were recorded in the second quarter of 2019, a year that at the time had been a five-year low for on-location shooting in L.A.”

As Breitbart News recently reported, even the famed Baywatch reboot considered shifting production to another state due to regulations and red tape. Projections also indicate that an exodus of the Paramount movie studio from California would hurt the economy to the tune of billions of dollars, with tens of thousands of jobs lost.

Conducted by the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation, the study found that California would lose roughly 28,990 to 57,980 full-time jobs statewide across various industries if Paramount relocated to a state like Tennessee, with revenue losses estimated between $10.6 billion and $21.2 billion annually.

“It should be emphasized that these estimated job losses include direct, indirect and induced jobs, capturing the ripple effects through Paramount’s supply chains in California as well as the economic activity of household spending,” the study said. “Consequently, the job losses pertain to all California industries rather than solely to motion picture and television production.”

The study also found that Paramount could potentially create a total of between 1,020 and 2,760 jobs in California across all industries and between $377.7 million and $1.01 billion if it acquired Warner Bros. and followed through on its pledge to release 30 films in theaters per year.