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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   3692 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for March 19, 2023

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Sometimes I think about how it seems like when new TV shows are made, in America anyway, the default locations are always Los Angeles and New York. And as I understand it, the companies that make them are pretty much all based in those places.

Does it work this way in other countries? Are German television shows always based in Berlin, or in Munich? Are Italian shows always in Rome? Or do you also have studios operating out of Turin, Milan, and Florence?

It seems to me like making a television show is not such an expensive undertaking that you couldn't have more local or regional variants. Why do you not have, for instance, a Cleveland-based studio making Cleveland-set programming for the NE Ohio market? Is it not profitable? Has it been tried and failed? Is it happening and I just don't know about it?

In the UK, there has been a quite conscious effort by successive governments to get the BBC out of London, since it's already our political, economic and cultural capital and there is a desire to spread wealth and cultural relevance to the provinces.

This has lead to things like Media City in Manchester, or Aliens in Cardiff.

And yet they still cast on London demographics...

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