Your Future Film Coalition News Digest #7
This week, we cover: The ticking clock for CPB funding, a box office data antitrust challenge, and more news.
The Latest in Indie Film as of June 6
Existential Threats for Public Media: Recent coordinated executive and legislative assaults form an unprecedented attack on public media infrastructure that has historically supported independent voices and underserved communities. Last month, both NPR and PBS responded to Trump’s executive order directing all agencies to cease federal funding for NPR and PBS with federal lawsuits challenging the order as unconstitutional “viewpoint discrimination” that violates First Amendment protections. NPR and three Colorado public radio stations filed suit in late May, followed by PBS and Minnesota affiliate Lakeland PBS three days later. Under these political attacks, rural stations like Lakeland PBS—the only source of local television news in northern Minnesota—face potential closure.
The stakes escalated dramatically this week when the White House formally asked Congress to codify $1.1 billion in CPB cuts as part of a $9.4 billion DOGE spending cuts package. Unlike the executive order currently tied up in courts, congressional approval would make these cuts immediate, clawing back two years of already-approved CPB funding. As covered before, these cuts would devastate the ecosystem that funds educational programming, local news coverage, and diverse storytelling. Though House Speaker Mike Johnson vowed to bring the package to a vote as early as next week, political analysis identifies the CPB funding cuts as likely removals, especially if pressure is put on Republican lawmakers fond of their local programming.
Now is the time to contact your Congressional representatives and let them know you support CPB and a robust public media system, and urge them to vote against the proposed rescission package. You can find your representative here. In addition, you can send a message via Protect My Public Media.
Comscore Box Office Monopoly Legal Challenge: Last month, service distributor Atlas Distribution filed a federal antitrust lawsuit against Comscore, alleging the media measurement giant leveraged its monopoly on box office data to “suppress competition” and force the shutdown of Atlas’s CinemaCloudWorks, an online software suite for independent distributors and producers. CCW used real-time data from Comscore, the sole provider of real-time ticketing data for 99% of theaters in the U.S., to feed its dashboards. According to the lawsuit, after 10 years of licensing Comscore data (which all the studios, major-minis, and many independent distributors do), Atlas’s license was first limited, the fee doubled, and then eliminated outright in April 2024. The case highlights a critical vulnerability in the independent film ecosystem: the concentration of essential industry data in the hands of a single corporate gatekeeper that can easily stifle fair competition.
More on the Top Story
Existential Threats for Public Media
“Congress finally gets Trump’s request to codify DOGE cuts to NPR, PBS, foreign aid,” Jennifer Scholtes, Katherine Tully-McManus, and Lisa Kashinsky, Politico, June 3, 2025.
Though Speaker Mike Johnson and some lawmakers in the House are calling for a vote on the recissions package as early as next week, Politico identified the $1.1 billion CPB portion as a piece that could be struck from the overall package, “since many Republicans are fond of local PBS programming in their districts and states. Republican Sen. Mike Rounds, for instance, said Tuesday that he will be scrutinizing the proposed cut to public broadcasting, since native American tribes in South Dakota rely on public radio stations and rural areas use the emergency broadcasting system.”
“NPR and Colorado public radio stations sue Trump White House,” David Folkenflik, NPR Morning Edition, May 27, 2025.
NPR and three Colorado public radio stations filed suit against the Trump administration in late May after the executive order targeting federal funding of CPB. “It is not always obvious when the government has acted with a retaliatory purpose in violation of the First Amendment. ‘But this wolf comes as a wolf,’” the legal filing for the public broadcasters states, quoting a 1999 dissent from Scalia. “The Order targets NPR and PBS expressly because, in the President's view, their news and other content is not ‘fair, accurate, or unbiased.’” PBS filed a similar suit three days later, on May 30.
Comscore Box Office Monopoly Legal Challenge
“Comscore Sued for Monopolizing Box Office Data,” Benjamin Lindsay and Jeremy Fuster, The Wrap, May 20, 2025.
According to the lawsuit’s timeline, Atlas began licensing Comscore’s real-time and historical box office data in 2014 for just under $14,000 a year. After identifying the company’s CCW platform as a competitive threat in 2020, Comscore allegedly restricted data access, doubled subscription fees to $29,000 in January 2024, then terminated access entirely in April 2024.
“CinemaCloudWorks sues Comscore for antitrust violations over access to box office data,” Martin A. Steinberg, J.D., VitalLaw, May 21, 2025.
Legal analysis of the lawsuit details reveals the exact mechanisms of Comscore’s market leverage. Atlas is pursuing claims under the Sherman Act, Clayton Act, and California's Unfair Competition Law, targeting Comscore's alleged abuse of its 99% market share in theatrical box office data. The lawsuit claims Comscore explicitly denied Atlas access to its Swift data portal, then made false representations to potential Atlas customers claiming its box office data could not be used with Atlas’s CCW, but only with Comscore’s TDS—classic monopolistic behavior designed to eliminate competition.
What’s Happening at FFC
The spring festival season is in full swing. After panels at Cannes Marché, Mountainfilm, and Tribeca this weekend, two FFC co-founders will be part of DC/DOX’s Reality Check Forum:
Friday, June 13, 4:30 p.m., Jon Reiss in “Policy in Focus: Leveraging Washington, DC for Social Change and Audience Engagement.” With Michael Bracy, whose decades working in policy advocacy ranges from the Future of Music Coalition (whose name FFC mimicked, with permission!) to Policy in Focus, which aligns documentary films with Washington insiders. This workshop will teach participants “how policy goals can be supported through meaningful partnerships with advocacy groups and how audiences can be maximized as a result of these relationships.”
Saturday, June 14, 10:30 a.m., Brian Newman in “State of the Industry,” to "examine the deepening crisis in distribution, the erosion of long-standing institutions, and the emergence of new models rising from disruption. With the added strain of shrinking federal arts support, escalating threats to public media, and increasing attacks on free speech, the stakes for documentary filmmakers have never been higher."
What We Are Following
State Tax Incentives News
“How Many Jobs Will California Film Credit Expansion Create?,” Gene Maddus, Variety, June 3, 2025.
In California, the current tax incentive supports 11,000 jobs, representing 1 in 9 total employed in the state’s film industry. The California Film Commission, which oversees the program, estimates that doubling the credit to “$750 million would result in a 40-50% increase in direct employment—or about 4,400 to 5,500 jobs. That’s only a fraction of the job loss experienced in California in the last couple of years, according to federal and industry data.” The Hollywood unions estimate that 17,000 jobs have evaporated since 2022.
“The Good, the Bad, and the Unknown of Texas' New Film Incentives,” Richard Whittaker, The Austin Chronicle, June 5, 2025.
Both the Texas House and Senate have passed the revised Texas state film production incentive SB 22. As we’ve previously covered, this bill contains some positives for indies. But also many policies that counter the Association of Film Commissioners International’s Best Practices in Screen Sector Development guidelines. Some examples include: Rebate, not grant or credit; a “family values” content clause; and a regressive incentive structure that reinforces the “long running complaint about [the Texas Moving Image Industry Incentive Program] is that the sums involved for smaller projects are so negligible that it costs more to hire an accountant for the application than they’d get back.”
ICYMI
“Inside Google’s plan to have Hollywood make AI look less doomsday,” Wendy Lee, Los Angeles Times, May 22, 2025.
Google, alongside OpenAI, Anthropic, Apple, and Meta, is funding film-centered narrative change to make AI seem less “nightmarish” in the popular imagination. The list of initiatives includes Google’s “AI on Screen,” a partnership with Santa Monica-based Range Media Partners to produce 15–20 minute short films; a partnership with Darren Aronofsky’s Primordial Soup, which will work with three filmmakers on short films and give them access to Google’s AI video generator Veo; Meta’s partnership with horror studio Blumhouse (which had two recent hits about AI-gone-wrong in M3gan and Afraid) and James Cameron’s Lightstorm Vision on AI-related initiatives; and Anthropic’s sponsorship of an upcoming exhibit at the SF Exploratorium called “Adventures in AI.”
