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Janae Pierre: Welcome to NYC NOW, your source for local news in and around New York City from WNYC. It's Wednesday, December 11th. Here's the midday news from Michael Hill.

Michael Hill: The suspect of the Midtown shooting of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson reportedly wrote about a rationale for killing Thompson in 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 is 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 Kriegstein has more on what experts call an unusual trend.

Brittany Kriegstein: Sixteen people were stabbed to death citywide last month compared to eight who were fatally shot. Experts like Fritz Umbach at the John Jay 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. Umbach also says that in some ways, it's harder for police to investigate killings involving knives.

Fritz Umbach: 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 stop, question, frisk.

Brittany Kriegstein: Knives are also commonly used in domestic attacks.

Michael Hill: 59 and rain. A lot of rain today. Breezy, 62 for high.

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Janae Pierre: Stay close. There's more after the break.

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Michael Hill: A year after the joint actors and writers strikes brought the film and television industry to a halt, local production is stuck in low gear. Records across the industry have been taking fewer jobs or lower paying ones or pivoting careers entirely. WNYC's Ryan Kailath has been reporting on the industry throughout. Hey, Ryan. The last strike ended a year ago in November. Why haven't things recovered?

Ryan Kailath: Yes, so these joint writers and actors strikes, we all remember this, and they were not the problem themselves. The strikes were a symptom of a larger problem in the industry, the expression of all the stuff that had been brewing. Basically, on the writer side, writers make a lot less writing for TV shows now than they did 10 years ago. 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.

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. 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 you know, every major network and studio has launched its own streaming service, 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, Netflix cracking down on password sharing. With the new administration, actually, we'll probably see some more deals, mergers, and consolidations coming up.

Michael Hill: Okay, Ryan, what does that look like for the industry though in New York? Understand before the pandemic, there were about 185,000 jobs in film and TV in New York. What about now?

Ryan Kailath: Yes, we don't have new jobs numbers as it takes the city consultants 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 a peak. What we do have is data about film shooting permits. 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, 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, professional sets, but owners of two of the major stages that make shows we've all watched, they told me the same thing. An owner of a studio said, "We were busy before the strikes and now we're not," was his quote.

Michael Hill: What are you hearing from workers on the ground, Ryan, about what this feels like?

Ryan Kailath: Yes, it doesn't feel great. It's meant less work for everyone in the industry, actors, writers, crew, agents, producers, managers, exec. 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. Character actors that we all recognize from The Sopranos and Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, big shows, they tell me, "It's totally dead. Nothing going on, no work, nothing."

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, et cetera, 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 actress 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.

Michael Hill: Ryan, quickly here, what does this mean? Is New York losing its position as one of the top Hollywood spots outside of Hollywood?

Ryan Kailath: 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 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. Backdrop, skyline's attitude should be all right.

Michael Hill: WNYC's Ryan Kailath looking at the TV and film industry a year after the strike. Ryan, great job. Thank you.

Ryan Kailath: Thanks, Michael.

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Janae Pierre: Thanks for listening. This is NYC NOW from WNYC. Check us out for updates every weekday three times a day for the latest news headlines and occasional deep dives, and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. We'll be back this evening.

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