A tax break included in New York’s state budget targeting variety and talk shows will give NBC even more incentive to relocate the “Tonight Show” from California to the Empire State, the New York Times reported Friday.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) drafted the tax break in January, but his aides denied it was motivated by a desire to bring the iconic late night show back to New York, where it premiered in 1954. The Times reported earlier this week that NBC intends to hand the “Tonight Show” over to Jimmy Fallon and move the program back to New York by the fall of 2014 at the latest.
From the Times:
The tax break, drafted by the Cuomo administration in January and included in its executive budget then, is aimed at “a television production that is a talk or variety program that filmed at least five seasons outside the state prior to its first relocated season.” The shows also have to be filmed in front of a studio audience of 200 or more and spend at least $30 million in annual production costs in the state, or at least $10 million in capital expenditures at a local studio.
The new tax break will be included in the final budget agreed to this week. It is intended to expand a tax break of 30 percent of the production costs that is already available to new productions, to some of those that relocate to New York.
