Comedy’s on-location count fell 43 per cent, the permit office says not to worry because sitcoms are made on stages, and the form that trained generations of writers is harder to track than any other

Television Comedy and the Missing Data

Of all the lines in the latest Los Angeles production report, the smallest number belongs to comedy. It is also the one that needs the most explanation.

The Figure

The regional permit office’s release on the second quarter of 2026 states that the television comedy category, totalling 57 shoot days, was down 43 per cent from the second quarter of 2025, when it recorded 100.

Set that beside television drama, which a summary of the same report put at 1,607 shoot days. Comedy’s on-location count is about one twenty-eighth of drama’s.

The office adds a gloss. While the decrease is disappointing, it says, it is also not alarming, as most local television comedy production is stage-based and not accounted for in its research. It notes that 36.8 per cent of on-location comedy shoot days went to productions receiving the state incentive.

The trade press made the same point: the vast majority of television comedies, including many approved for the tax credit, are soundstage productions.

So the number is small because the measure does not capture the thing.

How Comedy Is Made

There are, broadly, two ways to make a half-hour comedy.

The traditional method is multi-camera. The show is performed on a stage, on standing sets, in front of a studio audience, and recorded by several cameras at once. It is closer to filmed theatre than to film. Almost nothing is shot on location.

The other is single-camera. The show is shot like a film, one set-up at a time, with no audience. It may use real locations, but many single-camera comedies also work mainly on stages and a studio backlot.

Either way, comedy needs fewer location permits than drama. A police series requires streets, alleys and car parks. A comedy about a family or a workplace needs a kitchen and an office, and those are built.

Why That Matters for Writers

The multi-camera form in particular has been central to how television writers are trained and employed.

A traditional sitcom runs a large room. The writers are present throughout production. Scripts are rewritten every day of the week in response to rehearsals. On the night of the recording, the writers stand behind the cameras and pitch new jokes between takes when one does not land with the audience.

It is the most writer-intensive form of television there is. A season of twenty-two episodes kept a dozen or more writers employed for most of a year.

It is also where much of the craft of comedy writing has been passed on. Junior writers learned by watching a room fix a scene in real time.

So the health of studio-based comedy matters to writers out of proportion to its share of production. And it is exactly the sector the published figures cannot see.

What We Do Know

In the absence of location data, the evidence is indirect.

The number of multi-camera comedies on American television has fallen a long way from its height. Broadcast networks, their traditional home, order fewer series of all kinds. Streaming services have favoured single-camera comedies with short seasons of eight or ten episodes.

Shorter seasons mean smaller rooms for fewer weeks. Guild data for the 2023-24 season, reported last year, showed television writing jobs down 42 per cent on the season before, with the lowest ranks falling furthest.

Comedy has also suffered from a view among some buyers that it travels less well than drama. A thriller can be sold around the world. Humour is more local.

The Incentive and Comedy

The state tax credit does extend to comedy. The reports note that many comedies have been approved for it, and that over a third of the on-location comedy days recorded went to incentivised shows.

The chief executive of the permit office singled out one comedy by name, alongside a drama that received the credit, as demonstrating the economic and creative contribution such shows bring to the region.

If the credit succeeds in keeping stage-based comedies in Los Angeles, that is good for writers, since those are the shows where the room is on the lot. But the published figures will not show it. One would need data on soundstage occupancy, which is collected separately.

Reasons to Be Cautious About the Reassurance

The permit office’s statement that the fall is “not alarming” should be read with care.

It is true that most comedy is shot on stages. It was also true a year ago. The comparison is like for like. If on-location comedy days fell by 43 per cent, something changed. Either fewer comedies were in production, or those in production shot less outside, or both.

The office does not say which. And it has an interest, as does everyone quoted in these releases, in production being seen to recover.

A fall in the visible part does not prove a fall in the whole. Nor does it rule one out.

Two Views of Comedy’s Prospects

The pessimistic view is that half-hour comedy has been squeezed harder than any other scripted form. Fewer are ordered. Seasons are shorter. The multi-camera sitcom, which employed the most writers, is close to extinct outside a handful of broadcast shows. The room as a training ground is disappearing.

The optimistic view notes that comedy is cheap to make compared with drama. In a period of cost-cutting that is an advantage. A studio comedy with standing sets and a small cast costs a fraction of an effects-heavy drama. Some buyers are said to be looking again at the form for that reason. And comedies are well represented among the projects awarded the state credit.

Both may be true. The form is diminished, and it may be due a modest return.

For Writers

Those who want to write comedy should understand the shape of the market.

Single-camera, short-season shows are the majority. They hire small rooms, often of experienced writers, for limited periods.

Multi-camera shows, where they exist, offer the longest employment and the most traditional apprenticeship.

Late-night and variety programmes employ comedy writers under different terms and have had their own contraction.

And a strong original pilot remains the best calling card. Comedy is the one area where a script can demonstrate, on the page, the thing that cannot be taught.

What Would Help

Better data, for a start. A count of stage days by category would show what is happening in the part of the business that location figures miss.

Longer orders. A comedy given twenty episodes builds a room and an audience in a way that eight cannot.

And some patience. The most successful comedies in television history were not hits in their first season.

This article reports the published figures and explains their limits. The London Prat, which has been filmed before a live audience on occasions it prefers to forget, considers the form in its London satirical news about the studio audience and its British satirical news on sitcom writers’ rooms. Bohiney Magazine covers the American sitcom.

SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/