ABSTRACT
There was a time when most scripted television production in the United States was confined to a small radius around the major studios in California, but that has changed to a dramatic degree. There were so-called runaway productions that escaped California in the service of story, such as Law & Order, which was set and shot in New York City, as well as natural economic runaways that pursued cheaper costs, such as The X-Files, with the first five seasons shot in Vancouver. What has changed since the mid-1990s is the growth of artificial economic incentives – tax credits, rebates, and other inducements at the state, provincial, or national levels – designed to lure film and television productions. The influence of such incentives on scripted program production was most evident across sample periods in the 2010s. The change was most significant with the broadcast networks, where prime time dramas eligible for incentives increased from less than 50% in 2010–2011 to over 80% in 2016–2017. Most telling is that the focus extended to newer platforms, with 94.4% of original scripted series and miniseries on HBO, Showtime, and STARZ! and 85.4% on Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime eligible for incentives in 2017.
