‘American Idol’ leaves L.A. for Georgia amid Hollywood flight

“American Idol” is packing up its Los Angeles production base and heading to Georgia for its 25th season, becoming the latest reality show to abandon Southern California for a friendlier tax climate.

Production company Fremantle, which produces the ABC singing competition with Sony Pictures Television-backed 19 Entertainment, confirmed the move after more than two decades of filming in Southern California, though it has not released further details on the relocation. The company is reportedly in talks with a studio complex in the Atlanta area for the season, which premieres in 2027.

The draw is money. Georgia’s film tax credit combines a 20% base rate with an additional 10% “uplift” for productions that provide promotional value to the state — together adding up to the 30% figure often cited for the incentive. It isn’t a special rate carved out for reality TV; any eligible production, scripted or unscripted, that spends at least $500,000 in the state can qualify for the combined credit. “Idol” follows fellow unscripted staples “Shark Tank,” “Lego Masters,” “Family Feud” and “Celebrity Family Feud,” which have all already relocated to the Atlanta area — a separate trend from “The Masked Singer,” which left its Los Angeles lot for New Jersey earlier this year.

The exodus is showing up in the numbers. A quarterly report from FilmLA, the nonprofit that tracks location permits in Los Angeles, found on-location shoot days fell 12% year-over-year in the second quarter of 2026, driven largely by a 40% collapse in reality TV shoots. That’s despite an expanded California tax credit program that has attracted 170 film and TV projects to the state over the past year. The program was broadened this year to allow large-scale reality competition shows to apply for the state credit for the first time — but so far only one has been approved: Jimmy Kimmel and Mark Rober’s upcoming Netflix series “Schooled!”

The stakes go beyond one singing competition. A preliminary economic analysis from the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation warned that if Paramount follows through on threats to relocate its headquarters amid an antitrust fight over its Warner Bros. Discovery merger, California could lose between roughly 29,000 and 58,000 jobs and $10.6 billion to $21.2 billion a year in economic output. The study was commissioned by Paramount itself and leaked to Politico; the LAEDC cautioned its figures reflect a worst-case scenario rather than a firm forecast, since Paramount does not publicly disclose its state-by-state spending or employment.