Written by on Apr 5, 2013. Posted in Incentive News

New Mexico passes ‘Breaking Bad’ bill and Maryland plans film fund increase

The Governor of New Mexico has approved a larger TV location filming incentive after initially vetoing the bill. On the other side of the US, Maryland could more than triple the annual fund for its own location filming incentive.

On the East Coast, Maryland could be about to increase its annual film fund from USD7.5 million to USD25 million in a bid to attract more high-end TV and feature productions. Many local politicians are suspicious of the filming incentive’s real benefits, but the programme has attracted political drama House of Cards (left) and award-winning satire Veep.

“There’s probably not many programmes that have a demonstrated success rate like this one does,” Delegate Melony Griffith told MarylandReporter.com: “The question is not whether or not Maryland benefits from this bill; the question is do we want to compete with other parts of the country to win film to our state?”

The question is not whether or not Maryland benefits from this bill; the question is do we want to compete with other parts of the country to win film to our state?

Melony Griffith, Maryland House of Delegates

New Mexico’s ‘Breaking Bad’ TV bill takes its nickname from the Albuquerque-filmed TV crime drama and it increases the state’s television filming incentive to 30% from the previous figure of 25%. The bill had a false start en route to becoming law, with the state Governor – never a supporter of the filming incentive programme – only agreeing to pass it as part of sweeping state-wide tax reforms.