Leading in the polls for L.A. City Hall’s top job, Nithya Raman today went on a charm offense with the industry, & Paramount‘s CEO in particular.

“To David Ellison, to his co-CEO, I don’t just want those dollars that you’ve committed to productions to be spent in America,” the two-term Councilmember said today in her Hollywood district. “I want them to be spent in Los Angeles,” Raman added. The mayoral candidate stated that though she was opposed to $111 billion merger of Paramount and Warner Bros Discovery, now the deal has been approved she has no interest in “relitigating this into eternity.”

As has been the case so many times in the past, the home of Hollywood has some unlikely bedfellows when it comes to the bottom line.

In full campaign mode, Raman emphasised to Bloomberg’s Screentime event Thursday she will be a “relentless advocate” for the state’s current $750 million a year film and TV tax incentive program to become uncapped as a further move to get production back to California and L.A. With a room full of execs before her, Raman also reiterated she would “ensure that we had a film office in the mayor’s office that was liaising with other jurisdictions, that was making it as simple to shoot here as possible, as low cost to shoot here as possible, and that work would be established almost immediately.”

To that, with production significantly on the decline over the past six years and over 50,000 jobs lost, Raman followed the headlines as Ellison and his newly minted co-CEO Ynon Kreiz prepare to meld the two iconic H’wood companies.

“If I get to be mayor, I want to work with you and ensure and fight as hard as I possibly can to make sure that every single one of those shoots are happening here in Los Angeles,” the candidate said, addressing Ellison and Kreiz directly in absentee. “And I will do everything in my power to make sure that happens.”

Though Raman leads against incumbent Karen Bass by double digits in many polls, the fact is 1/3 of voters in the City of Angels remain undecided with just over a month before the election. To that, the candidate has to win over a portion of those who voted for ex-The Hills regular Spencer Pratt in the three-way primary earlier this year — and Raman had a pitch.

“To every voter who voted for Spencer Pratt in the primary who is disappointed that he’s not in this general election, I want to speak directly to you,” Raman said of the Donald Trump ally. “I want to speak directly to them, and to say that I share your frustration with City Hall, and I will work with every molecule of my being to ensure that this city is working for you.”

Among his various post-primary endeavor, former Palisades resident Pratt has been instrumental, by all bipartisan accounts, to the crafting of federal film and TV tax incentive legislation — a bill that Raman has said she too supports.

Leaning into her own outsider status, even with years on City Council, Raman added: to the Pratt voters: “The frustrations that Angelinos have with the direction of our city is warranted. We have, under this mayor’s leadership, we have moved in the wrong direction and and away from actually delivering the kinds of services that we were able to deliver just a few years ago because of fiscal mismanagement under her leadership.”

“So, to those Pratt voters, I just want to say to you, I will do better for you.”

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