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L.A. Fires: TV Exec Discusses What’s Next for Entertainment

L.A. Fires: TV Exec Discusses What’s Next for Entertainment

Last updated on: January 22, 2025 at 1:27 pm by Kate O'Hare

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L.A. Fires: TV Exec Discusses What’s Next for Entertainment 2025-01-22T13:27:19-08:00 Kate O'Hare

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Show business may not be the only business in L.A., but it is the one all the world knows about. Now, devastating wildfires in Pacific Palisades and Altadena threaten that business and the city it helped create.

What Happened in the Palisades and Eaton Fires?

Fire has largely leveled two iconic neighborhoods in the Los Angeles area: Pacific Palisades, to the west (site of the Palisades Fire), and Altadena, to the east (site of the Eaton Fire).

One is largely (but not entirely) upscale; the other is largely middle- and working-class.

From a Jan. 19, 2025 story at AP News:

Southern Californians are bracing for gusty winds and a heightened risk of wildfires, less than two weeks after the outbreak of deadly blazes that have killed at least 27 people and charred thousands of homes.

…

The warnings come as firefighters continue to battle two major blazes in the Los Angeles area, the Palisades and Eaton fires, which have destroyed more than 14,000 structures since they broke out during fierce winds on Jan. 7. The Palisades fire was 52% contained on Sunday and the Eaton fire 81% contained, according to fire officials.

Pacific Palisades is located on bluffs over the ocean, between Santa Monica and Malibu.

Heavily populated Santa Monica escaped fire damage, but Malibu (which had just endured the Franklin Fire in December) suffered the loss of beachside homes, restaurants, and a longstanding mobile-home park.

There were other, smaller fires in different locations around Los Angeles, but those proved far less destructive than Palisades and Eaton.

Here’s an overview of Palisades:

Altadena is near the more famous Pasadena, tucked into the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains, at the eastern side of the Los Angeles basin. Here’s a look at what the Eaton Fire wrought there:

The Fires’ Impact on the Entertainment Industry

Of course, the fires have impacted people who work in many industries, at every income level and from a wide variety of backgrounds, but showbiz is my beat, so that’s my focus here.

I’ve even been on the Drew Mariani Show, on Relevant Radio, a few times since the fires broke out to discuss their effect on Los Angeles (and I’m glad and grateful to say I don’t live near either fire).

Pacific Palisades is home to many longtime residents, whose houses often predate the more recent influx of wealthy celebrities.

But the area is also popular with showbiz folks you may not have heard of — executives, lawyers, producers, financiers, agents, etc. — occupying key positions at a wide swath of studios, networks, streaming services and production companies.

Some celebs call Altadena home (singer/actress Mandy Moore lost her house), but most of the entertainment-industry people there were likely in production and support for movies and TV. Also there are writers, musicians, etc., looking for an attractive and relatively affordable place to live.

Many in both fires have lost homes and possessions, while many more are evacuated and don’t know when they can return.

TV and film production in L.A. are already at an historic low, so it’s hard to imagine that this disruption will do anything but make it worse. With corporate mergers, restructuring and “right-sizing,” a lot of non-production people have also lost their jobs in recent months.

But, the immediate issue is, what are the next steps for the industry to take as we move from fighting the fires to dealing with the aftermath?

Checking in With a Showbiz Executive About What Comes Next

For a perspective on the effects of the fires on the entertainment industry, I turned to Kelly Kahl, a longtime TV executive, whose 26-year career at CBS culminated with him being President of Entertainment.

These days, he’s also a movie producer (most recently, of the Milwaukee Brewers documentary Just a Bit Outside), so he knows many facets of the business.

The full interview is posted below, but here are some excerpts:

On what Kahl thinks the conversations are now about at companies:

Well, I certainly hope the conversation has something to do with, “How do we take care of our employees?” Because I’ll speak for myself, but literally every person I know who works in entertainment knows somebody whose house literally went up in smoke.

And I’m not sure people even really grasp, certainly outside Los Angeles, and I think even inside Los Angeles necessarily, grasp what happened here. This wasn’t a neighborhood that went down. These are two entire cities vanished.

And certainly the Palisades a pretty high percentage of people who probably work in the entertainment business.

And so, I’m sure studios are continuing to do what they do and produce shows. But I think there’s certainly many, many thousands of people who are affected.

And when you work on a production, it’s kind of an all-encompassing thing. It’s not a eight-hour shift. There are long days, irregular days, days. And then to have something in the back of your head like this, and maybe you don’t know where you’re going to sleep that night, that is very weighty.

So I hope that the studios themselves will help their people, and I certainly hope the government’s going to come in at some point and help a lot of folks as well.

On the mistaken idea that it’s just celebrities who lost homes:

It’s not just celebrities, it’s everybody. Take a TV show, and there might be 250 people who work on the TV show. Five or six are the actors.

And the other 200-plus are lighting people, sound people, costume people, makeup people, crew people, who don’t necessarily live in Pacific Palisades, but very well could live in a place like Altadena.

On the first calls he would make, if Kahl was currently a TV executive:

I think first is extending sympathy and understanding and telling them they’re not in it by themselves. And then hopefully finding out what the studio could do to help them, be it temporary housing, be it help with education for their kids.

I mean, schools went up in smoke. It’s not just homes that went, the entire infrastructure of two cities. So there’s an awful lot to think about, and I would be certainly trying to leverage whatever resources the company could offer.

These are our folks, so how do we help them, circle the wagons? We’re family.

Here’s the whole thing:

Whither the Oscars?

UPDATE 1/22/2025: The Hollywood Reporter offers a letter sent to Academy members, highlighting the focus of the awards. Here’s an excerpt:

We will honor Los Angeles as the city of dreams, showcasing its beauty and resilience, as well as its role as a beacon for filmmakers and creative visionaries for over a century. We will reflect on the recent events while highlighting the strength, creativity, and optimism that defines Los Angeles and our industry.

Thus far, the 97th Academy Awards ceremony, scheduled for Sunday, March 2, in Hollywood, HAS NOT been canceled, This is despite tabloid reports to the contrary, and author Stephen King’s call for the kudocast to be axed (likely issued from his home in Maine).

King already said he wouldn’t be voting, but there’s no word on whether he would personally compensate all the hundreds, if not thousands, of non-celebrities who would lose chunks of income if the awards and its related events did not go forward.

Some events, taking place during the worst of the fires, were already canceled or postponed.

U.K. tabloid The Sun posted a story that went rather viral, stating that a “secret contingency strategy” was in place, and that a committee of top stars were monitoring the situation.

In response, the Hollywood Reporter wrote:

The Hollywood Reporter has spoken with senior figures at the Academy [of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences], as well as individuals close to some of the aforementioned A-listers, and can categorically report that no such plan is being contemplated and no such advisory committee exists.

The only body currently weighing how the Academy should proceed is the organization’s 55-person board of governors, which currently includes none of the individuals listed by The Sun, and the most recent determination of which — announced on Monday — is that the date of the Oscars ceremony, now 47 days away, will not be shifting.

The board — which includes four individuals who lost their homes in the fires — did, however, extend the Oscar nominations voting window; push back the announcement of the Oscar nominations; cancel this year’s Oscar Nominees Luncheon; and postpone the Scientific and Technical Awards.

The Academy and broadcast partner ABC would have to decide on changes to the ceremony itself, which will likely focus on raising funds for relief for fire victims.

What Fundraising Is Already Happening?

Along with a variety of aid from companies, nonprofits, government agencies and individuals, two benefit concerts, collectively called FireAid, are already planned. From the official homepage:

Join us for an evening of music and solidarity. The FireAid benefit concert will be held at Intuit Dome and Kia Forum on January 30th dedicated to rebuilding communities that have been devastated by wildfires.

Contributions made to FireAid in connection with the FireAid benefit concert and other direct donations will be distributed under the advisement of the Annenberg Foundation and will be distributed for short-term relief efforts and long-term initiatives to prevent future fire disasters throughout Southern California.

The Annenberg Foundation, with decades of philanthropic leadership in our community, including rapid response, will help coordinate a team to direct funds for the greatest impact.

The homepage also has a list of participants, which includes Alanis Morrissette, Billie Eilish, Graham Nash, Green Day, Jelly Roll, Joni Mitchell, Lady Gaga, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Stevie Nicks, Stevie Wonder, Sting and several more.

Click here for L.A.’s official recovery homepage, and here for the one from the state.

Image: Shutterstock

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Religious Music and Entertainment

About Kate O'Hare

Based in Los Angeles, Kate O'Hare is a veteran entertainment journalist, Social Media Manager for Family Theater Productions and a rookie screenwriter. You can read more about the author here.

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