NYC NOW - Midday News : More on the Suspect in the CEO Shooting. Stabbings in NYC Jumped in November. The State of the TV & Film Industry.

Episode Date: December 11, 2024

We're learning more about the suspect in the fatal shooting of the UnitedHealthcare CEO. Plus, a look at what's behind a recent uptick in stabbings in New York City. Finally, WNYC's Ryan Kailath reports on the state of the TV and film industry.

Welcome to NYC Now, your source for local news in and around New York City from WMYC. It's Wednesday, December 11th. Here's the midday news from Michael Hill. The suspect of the Midtown shooting of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson reportedly wrote about a rationale for killing Thompson and a notebook police are examining. This is according to the New York Times, CNN, and ABC, which are all citing law enforcement sources. According to the reports, 26-year-old suspect Luigi Mangione detailed plans on killing the CEO in a targeted manner at an annual financial conference.

Thompson was shot to death outside the Midtown Hilton Hotel last week where such a conference was set to take place. The NYPD did not immediately comment on the reports. Police in Pennsylvania arrested Mangione on Monday and the Manhattan DA's asking the governor in New York to sign a warrant to have Mangione return to the Empire. state. Police say stabbings killed twice as many people than shootings in New York City in November. WNYC's Brittany Crigstein has more than what experts are calling an unusual trend. 16 people were stabbed to death citywide last month, compared to eight who were fatally shot. Experts like Fritz Umbach at the John J. College of Criminal Justice say it could point to a potential spike in mental health crises among the alleged assailants, like in the case of

Ramon Rivera. He's the man police say killed three strangers in unprovoked attacks on a recent morning in Manhattan. Umbuck also says that in some ways, it's harder for police to investigate killings involving knives. It's much more difficult to find a knife through a stop question frisk. It's less visible to the officer and not always discoverable in the pat-down that's allowed in a stock question frisk. Knives are also commonly used in domestic attacks. 59 in rain. A lot of rain today. Breezy, 62 for a high. Stay close. There's more after the break. A year after the joint actors and writers' strikes brought the film and television industry to a halt,

local production is stuck in low year. Records across the industry have been taking fewer jobs or lower paying ones or pivoting careers entirely. Dabbled to my stage, Ryan Kyloth, has been reporting on the industry throughout. Hey, Ryan, So the last strike ended a year ago, November. Why haven't things recovered? Yeah. So these joint writers and actors strikes, you know, we all remember this. And they were not the problem themselves.

The strikes were kind of a symptom of a larger problem in the industry, the expression of all the stuff that had been brewing. Basically, on the writer's side, writers make a lot less writing for TV shows now than they did 10 years ago. You know, that used to be a solid middle class, upper middle class job. You could build a family and a career off of it. Now it's very sporadic, almost more freelance. TV shows are shorter. The pay is less steady. And actors, same thing.

Streaming changed the compensation model for actors greatly. On top of that, the fear of AI, replacing both actors and voice actors and writers as well. And where is this coming from? A lot of it is coming from macro changes in the entertainment industry. You got this major shift with cord cutting and the rise of streaming in the past few years. We all have watched as every major network in studio has launched its own streaming service, right? Max, Disney Plus, Paramount Plus, Peacock, you can't keep track of them all. All those new services needed new shows to fill them with.

So we saw this explosion of content. Industry folks, they refer to this as the peak TV era. Well, that bubble is bursting now. maybe has burst. The economics of streaming are not easy. All the companies are pulling back. There's layoffs, spending cuts, price hikes, you know, Netflix cracking down on password sharing. And with the new administration, actually, we'll probably see some more deals, mergers, and consolidations coming up. Okay, Ryan, what does that look like for the industry, though, in New York? I understand before the pandemic, there were about 185,000 jobs in film and TV in New York. What about now?

Yeah, we don't have new jobs numbers as it takes the city consultants sort of months to sift through all the various industries that touch entertainment and create jobs there. But it's absolutely down. 2018, 19 or so was kind of a peak. What we do have is data about film shooting permits. You know, every time you see a shoot around town with the trucks and the lights and the catering tents, the city issues those permits. And we can use those as a sort of proxy for activity. shooting permits so far this year are down 43% from the same period in 2019 before the pandemic, right? Like almost half.

That is a huge contraction in filming activity. I should say location shooting data doesn't capture all activity. For example, it doesn't capture shooting on sound stages as professional sets. But owners of two of the major stages that make shows we've all watched, they told me the same thing. One guy said, an owner of a studio said, You know, we were busy before the strikes and now we're not, was his quote. What are you hearing from workers on the ground, Ryan, about what this feels like? Yeah, it doesn't feel great.

It's meant less work for everyone in the industry. Actors, writers, crew, agents, producers, managers, I talked to more than a dozen people reporting this in recent weeks. The entire industry in New York and nationwide is in a secular contraction. and that means less work to go around for everyone. You know, character actors that we all recognize from the Sopranos and marvelous Miss Maisel, big, big shows, they tell me, quote, it's totally dead, nothing going on, no work, nothing, end quote. Some smaller players are talking about leaving the industry. People are cleaning houses to make ends meet. They're trading crypto, obviously working hospitality, restaurants, etc.

or teaching or going back to school. I talked to a number of people who left New York and moved back in with their parents. One comedian and Atrix I spoke with, she's been working consistently for 14 years. She told me this is the first time in her 14-year career where almost everyone she knows is unemployed. So, Ryan, quickly here, what does this mean? Is New York losing its position as one of the top Hollywood spots outside of Hollywood? I mean, so like I said, it's not just a local problem. It's a national one.

This is happening around the country. And there are reasons to be hopeful in New York. Pat Kaufman, who runs the mayor's office of media and entertainment, she says, you know, we are positioned to weather the downturn because we have generous tax credits in New York. We're adding tons of soundstage capacity. And New York is still New York. Kaufman calls it the luxury brand for filming. Backrop Skyline's attitude should be all right.

WNIC's Ryan Highloft looking at the TV and film industry a year after the strike. Ryan, great job. Thank you. Thanks, Michael. Thanks for listening. This is NYC now from WNYC. Check us out for updates every weekday, three times a date, for the latest news headlines and occasional deep dives. And subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

We'll be back this evening.