President To Talk TV and The Economy

The White House said Thursday that President Obama will be taking a trip to California next week to talk about the economy.

The venue will be DreamWorks Animation studios. The White House was not revealing any details about the speech at press time, but Deputy Press Secretary Josh Earnest did suggest the general theme.

"The American motion picture and television industry is a growing industry and continues to create thousands of jobs all across the country," he said.

John McCoskey, executive VP for the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), which represents TV and film studios, outlined just what that economic impact is earlier this week in a Hill hearing on content delivery in the digital age.

"Our industry supports nearly two million jobs in the United States. It is responsible for 108,000 businesses across all 50 states, 85 percent of which employ fewer than 10 people. In 2011, the industry supported $104 billion in wages; $16.7 billion in sales tax, state income tax and federal taxes; and a $12.2 billion trade surplus."

John Eggerton

Contributing editor John Eggerton has been an editor and/or writer on media regulation, legislation and policy for over four decades, including covering the FCC, FTC, Congress, the major media trade associations, and the federal courts. In addition to Multichannel News and Broadcasting + Cable, his work has appeared in Radio World, TV Technology, TV Fax, This Week in Consumer Electronics, Variety and the Encyclopedia Britannica.