Television Inflation

Inflation rates play a big role in our lives. Some aspects we may not even think about is the Television market. Inflation rates are giving the Television market a hard time.

I am sure we have all heard about the Property Brothers, Trixie Motel or Drew’s Dream Car. Scott Brothers Entertainment produces these shows. TV producer, Jeniffer Horvath, explains how terrible inflation rates are.

Lights Camera Inflation

We took a look at the expenses in detail and explored the cost of gas and hotel prices.

Cost of Services Graph from 2019 - 2023

Some expenses include hotels and gas. In 2020 the average gas price to travel was $100 a month. This number gradually went up. In 2023, the gas price is $157 a month. In 2020 the average daily rate of a hotel was $138. In 2023, the cost is $188. In both cases the price of the expenses went up.

Horvath says, “Where we’re sending a crew from one location to another and we have things like flights, rental cars, hotels, uhm location fees, prodiams. Uhmm, just the cost of all those things, uh excess baggage all of that has gone up.” Inflation rates are directly impacting their budgets.

She explains budgets are flat lined. This means while the cost of everything goes up, the budget stays the same.

Costs of expenses Generally went up from 2019 to 2023. For brief period during the Covid Quarantine, some of the numbers leveled off while everyone was inside, watching tv, leading to viewer rating going up. After that period of time, the costs gradually went back up. for example, in 2021 the costs of hotels was $4992 and in 2021 the costs went to $6144

Graph of either House Hunters or Food Network budget vs. expenses costs. Explain how the network is working with a deficit.

According to Global management McKinsey Firm, they believe a viable solution is, “For many companies, the trick is to strike a balance between raising prices to make up for input cost increases.”

Rachel Horvath, also a Film Producer, working at Lone Eagle Entertainment agrees with Jeniffer’s opinion. She is the Senior Vice President and worked with shows like You Gotta Eat Here. She believes producers have to save costs in different aspects. One example included, buying a cheaper camera that still produces good quality images/footage. Rachel is striking a balance between prices and input costs.

Inflation rates also play an indirect role on the TV market as well. Inflation rates affect consumer purchasing. According to Voice of Canadian Immigration costs of essentials went up in everything. In 2021, housing costs went up by 4.5%. Rent went up 5.9%.

This resulted in a decrease towards non-essentials. Spending on this sector went down 2.7% because inflation affected prices on essentials. This also led to a 8.7% drop in sectors such as television or going to the theaters.

The TV market is getting hit with inflation rates both directly and indirectly. We saw how it impacts their production, And how consumer purchases play a role in the Television market. The Television industries tries its best to continue a network series show until it financially incapable of being filmed, while the producers are finding creative ways to battle the inflation rates, there is only so much that can be done.