American Idol is leaving Los Angeles after 24 seasons: California wrote a law last year to stop exactly this, and Idol didn't make the cut
California spent last year writing its first tax credit for unscripted television, partly so that shows like this one would stop leaving. Season 25 of American Idol is being built in Georgia instead, because the show could not use the credit that was written for it.
The Atlanta area is getting American Idol. Fremantle, which makes the show with Sony-backed 19 Entertainment, confirmed to Deadline that production moves out of Los Angeles for Season 25, which premieres in the new year. The studio complex is picked but the deal is not signed yet.
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The arithmetic is not subtle. Georgia pays a transferable credit that reaches 30% once a production adds the state logo to its promo materials, and it asks for $500,000 of in-state spending to qualify. Reality and game shows are on the eligible list by name, which is the part that matters here: unscripted television is exactly what most incentive programmes leave out.
California stopped leaving it out last year. AB 1138 expanded the state credit and, for the first time, let unscripted shows in — but only "large-scale competition shows" carrying a budget of at least $1 million an episode. On paper that is Idol. In practice the show did not qualify, and neither did a number of others.
The credit written for shows like this one, which this one could not use
The fine print is where it goes. The bill keeps out entire genres by name:
"traditional reality, game shows, talk shows, or docufollow television programming"
Producers have been unhappy about that wording since it passed, and the Idol decision is the loudest test of it so far. A competition series with judges, a live vote and a network slot is the kind of show the expansion was sold on; the state wrote the eligibility line somewhere else.
A state can write a tax credit for unscripted television and still not write one that unscripted television can use.
The hole it leaves is measurable. FilmLA's second-quarter data has unscripted production in Los Angeles down 40% in shoot days against the same quarter of 2025, and down 62.7% across five years. Scripted television actually rose. Unscripted is the part of the industry quietly walking out.
Idol has been moving pieces for a year
This is not the show's first change of address, and it is not the only competition series leaving. Fox is taking The Masked Singer to New Jersey for Season 15, where the credit runs 30% on qualified spend and up to 40% on certain studio projects, and where every kind of unscripted show is allowed in. What Idol has already rearranged:
- Hollywood Week left Hollywood for Nashville last season.
- Live social voting arrived — the first reality competition to try it.
- The night moved from Sunday to Monday, with a live Disney+ stream added.
- Season 25 was ordered in July, the tenth on ABC.
- Red Studios in Hollywood is what the Atlanta complex replaces.
Ryan Seacrest still hosts. Luke Bryan, Lionel Richie and Carrie Underwood are expected back on the panel, though their deals are not closed, and Megan Michaels Wolflick remains showrunner. The set they walk onto in the new year sits roughly 1,950 miles from the one they left.
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