New York, a Growing Hub for TV Production

Move over Hollywood. New York has become a hotspot for television production, hosting almost two dozen prime time series in the 2011-2012 season. According to the Mayor’s Office of Film Theater, and Broadcasting, this is a large jump from 2006 when only nine shows were filmed in the Big Apple.

There are a few reasons for the boom in New York production, from the large outer borough soundstages to the reasonable tax incentives, reported the New York Times. New York is no longer just a setting, and industry veterans said the days of shooting New York sitcoms like “Friends” and “Seinfeld” on the West coast are dwindling.

Just like the casts of these television series, New York can play versatile characters when necessary. In DirecTV’s legal thriller “Damages,” the city morphs into an Afghani marketplace. HBO’s miniseries “Mildred Pierce” required the city to transform into 1930s Los Angeles. And soon, New York will go back in time to the jet age of the 1960s in ABC’s upcoming drama “Pan Am.”

Other new shows to be filmed in the city include NBC’s musical drama “Smash,” which follows the making of a Broadway production about Marilyn Monroe, and “A Gifted Man,” the CBS drama about a surgeon that receives messages from his ex-wife after her death.

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