Hollywood on the Hudson is in danger of losing its luster.
A highly successful state program that pro vides tax credits to lure TV and film productions to New York has run out of cash – and now in dustry officials fear pro ducers will run to other states in search of better deals.
As the first harbinger of bad news to come, the number of TV pilots scheduled for production in New York this year slumped to zero, from 19 last year. One produc tion, a pilot for CBS, was recently moved from New York to New Jersey.
“Pilots are like the ca naries in the coal mine,” said Douglas Steiner, chairman of Steiner Stu dios at the Brooklyn Navy Yard.
He fears that without the 30 percent tax credit from the state, producers for big feature films will follow the TV pilots.
“Features-wise, people are not budgeting New York City right now. They don’t want to take a risk,” Steiner said.
When the program was begun in 2004, the state budgeted $425 million to fund its share of tax credits through 2013. But the funds were used up faster than expected, due in part to Gov. Paterson’s move last year to raise the credit from 10 percent to 30 percent.
A Paterson spokesman said yesterday that there is no additional funding for the tax credits included in his latest budget proposal.
Assemblyman Michael Gianaris (D-Queens) insisted that state lawmakers would have to step in and add the money to the budget – or face the prospect of the state losing thousands of jobs.
“This has been the single most effective economic-development and jobs-creation program in history,” said Gianaris, whose district includes the Kaufman Astoria Studios. “To let it expire would be insane.”
Since the program began, the state and city combined have issued $690 million in tax credits and have collected $2.7 billion in taxes from movie and TV productions, according to a study by Ernst & Young.
The study also found that during 2007, New York’s movie and TV industry created 7,031 jobs directly – and an additional 12,481 indirectly.