Entertainment Brands Just Passed Cars in Value. L.A. Filming Still Fell.

Interbrand puts the sector's brands at $332.5 billion, led by streaming and platform names, as L.A. shoot days dropped 4.8%.

Netflix, YouTube and Spotify helped push entertainment past cars this year as the world's second most valuable brand business, Deadline reported Tuesday. Meanwhile, on-location filming in Los Angeles fell again.

The brand consultancy Interbrand puts the combined brand value of entertainment companies at $332.5 billion, up 12.4% from a year earlier, according to Deadline. Interbrand's own announcement says the sector overtook automotive, which had the sharpest decline of any category. The gains went to the platforms. The older names went backward.

In Interbrand's Best Global Brands 2026 ranking, YouTube's brand value jumped 21.7%, enough for 10th place overall. Netflix matched that rise and reached $34.1 billion. Spotify's grew 37.8%. Disney's slipped 2.4%, and Sony's fell 5%.

Interbrand ties Netflix's gain to its push into live events, sport and advertising, Deadline reported. Gonzalo Brujó, Interbrand's global CEO, said in remarks Deadline published that the competitive edge is "shifting from the scale of content to the strength of the brand."

The scale of content is the part that happens on sets. FilmLA, the region's film permit office, counted 4,171 on-location shoot days from July through September in a report released Oct. 21. That's down 4.8% from the same stretch last year. Commercials, which California's tax credit doesn't cover, dropped 15.9%.

"Overall production remains far below where Los Angeles needs it to be, and crews and businesses across the region are feeling it," FilmLA CEO Denise Gutches said in the report.

Netflix hasn't left town. FilmLA listed its "13 Going on 30" and the fourth season of "The Night Agent" among last quarter's local shoots. The real bright spot was projects backed by the state tax credit, which more than doubled their shoot days to 505. Where L.A. streets got busier, it was mostly where Sacramento was paying.

The newest entrants to that workforce are still in high school. On Tuesday, the Television Academy Foundation announced a free 10-week after-school course training teens in Boyle Heights and North Long Beach for entry-level production assistant jobs. Saturday's opening field trip put the program at a Manhattan Beach taping of "America's Funniest Home Videos."

The course ends with a certificate on the Academy's North Hollywood campus. Then they'll need a set.

Source: Deadline, retrieved October 28, 2026. Other sources: lifestyle.middletownlifemagazine.com, interbrand.com, filmla.com, televisionacademy.com.