We’ve written now and then about the decline of Hollywood — in terms of who is still willing to pay for TinselTown. In 2022, Hollywood lost $500 billion in value, according to the Financial Times.

Well, the decline continues. The giant Paramount Skydance conglomerate is serious about leaving Los Angeles and looking for offices in Nashville. The company is currently mired in conflicts with the state government over its bid to acquire Warner Bros Discovery. Tennessee has offered a better deal.

At Politico, Daniel Miller spells out what this means:

Paramount, whose assets include a namesake streaming service and CBS, is the last major studio to maintain its headquarters in Hollywood. The departure of the company from its historic Melrose Avenue studio would be a psychic and economic blow to a region that is already grappling with the ongoing runaway production crisis. More than 42,000 film and television jobs were lost in Los Angeles County between 2022 and 2024.

“Paramount is looking for Nashville office space as I tweighs leaving LA,” September 16, 2026

Miller notes that the loss will be a cultural as well as a financial blow to the city:

According to a 2015 master plan for a proposed redevelopment of Paramount’s property in Hollywood, the studio’s main lot and several ancillary sites contained about 546,000 square feet of office space. The lot includes 29 soundstages spread across more than 60 acres. It is best known for its oversized Bronson Gate, which was featured in “Sunset Boulevard” and has been called “Hollywood’s Arc de Triomphe.” Countless films and TV shows have been shot at the lot, among them “Rear Window” and “Cheers.” “Weighs leaving LA,”

Looking at the Big Picture (so to speak)

Hollywood — like New York — was bound to be one of the losers in the “internet changes everything” stakes. So much of its cachet depended on location — and that is precisely what the digital world obviates.

The stifling of creativity that Cancel Culture imposes and the warping of classics that Wokeness inflicts are symptoms, not causes of decline. In that respect, the situation is a bit like the Church of England renting out St. Paul’s Cathedral for raves; that was not happening back when the Church of England still mattered.

Hollywood’s real problem is that, as noted earlier, so much news and entertainment out there is simply free anywhere for the price of an internet connection. Think Starlink.

Blockbuster cultural events like The Odyssey (2026) still matter but they can’t save an industry culture that depends on location.

New York City faces the same problem. Big brokerages do not need to be on Wall Street to do business any more so they are moving to less expensive locations.

As in California, some blame the politicians or the voters. Again, they may be mistaking the effect for the cause. As the value of location declines, so does the location. And no remedy can turn back the clock.

Again, if this trend persists, it will surely be reflected in Hollywood’s loss of cultural influence.