Subsidy Sheet: Times “data” reporting fumbles facts of NY’s billions in film/TV subsidies

May 2, 2025

Give the NY Times “data reporter” two studies on New York’s billions in payments to Hollywood film and TV producers and multinational media corporations. The more recent (and far more methodologically robust and transparent) study was done by a nationally-recognized independent consultancy based in Philadelphia that does not do consulting for the film industry. The other study was done by an upstate firm that frequently works for economic development officials, Industrial Development Authorities, and the film industry. The independent study finds one NY tax dollar going to the film industry generates $0.30 in taxes, while the much less sophisticated, methodologically-questionable industry consultant report says a dollar of taxpayer subsidy generates $1.70. 

Guess which report the NY Times “data reporter” cites first and at greater length? Agreed, that was too easy. 

Speaking of easy, NYT somehow was unable to find that the state’s own data reveals that each full-time Film/TV job costs about $67,000 a year in taxpayer subsidies (by comparison, each Amazon HQ2 job – the benchmark subsidy ripoff cited by NY elected officials would have cost about $19,000 a year). But why let important facts stand in the way of data reporting? 

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More NY corporate giveaway news from this week:

  • Also from the NYT story: Every household in New York paid $22.20 for the TV show “The Blacklist.” Can we get a write-off on our NYS tax return for our favorite show?
  • Syracuse-area Onondaga County refuses to release a report from Micron on the planned chip fab’s impact on the local environment and traffic (Syracuse Post-Standard).
  • Please read Pat Garofalo’s breakdown at Boondoggle of the lies being told to build a stadium in his D.C. backyard. There the same lies repeated everywhere and identical to the BS justification for spending a billion in NY taxpayer dollars on the Buffalo Bills new stadium, the new soccer stadium in Flushing, Queens, Yankee Stadium, etc., etc.
  • Time Magazine looks at tax breaks for AI data centers, citing both Good Jobs First’s new report and Tim Bartik’s finding that tax breaks only affect business location decisions 2 to 25% of the time.
  • Area Development, a magazine for corporate overlords, published its annual Site Selection survey. While subsidies rank only #9 for what companies care about most when picking a location, 95% of respondents did mark them as “important” or “very important.” Inspired by this, we are planning a survey to businesses asking them if they want free state and local tax dollars and whether they think free public money helps create a more favorable business environment.
  • We posted an update to our analysis of the budget’s likely impact on NYS subsidies, which will increase by at least $3.7 billion.

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