Screenshot from “Justice with Judge Mablean on Justice Central.TV. (YouTube)
“Entertainment Studios,” a vast, windowless production facility, is located on a dead end street in Culver City, past the concrete facades of Smashbox Studios and the Nordstrom headquarters.
The building is not on any tour bus route, and even those who work in the local entertainment industry probably don’t know it exists. But this unlikely building is one of the global epicenters of television output.
The company, owned by executive Byron Allen and his Allen Media Group, has eight 24/7 networks including comedy.tv, pets.tv, The Weather Channel, and Justice Central.TV. According to the company, AMG is “the largest supplier of first-run syndicated programming for broadcast television.”
Judge shows are a particular specialty. AMG is the largest owner, producer, and distributor of television court programming on Earth, producing nine different courtroom-based series that run day and night on Justice Central.TV and are syndicated to local broadcast networks. Allen Media Group renewed all nine for two more seasons last year.
Every hour-long episode of every show has a roughly identical format: several non-criminal “cases” are resolved by a judge over a satisfying 15-20 minute timeframe. Among the most popular Justice Central.TV offerings are Mathis Court with Judge Mathis, Justice for the People with Judge Milian, and America's Court with Judge Ross.
All of those judges, at one time, presided over actual cases as arbiters of the American judicial system. But the cases they hear on TV are not real. The litigants are paid actors — as are the audience members sitting quietly behind them.
Like so many American children, my after-school consumption was a combo of People’s Court, Divorce Court and Judge Judy. So when I received an email with an opportunity to audition for a Justice Central.TV show, I jumped at the chance. My mother would be so excited to see me in one of these things, I thought. And because the only real requirement was not being in an actors guild, I was qualified. Improvisational skills were also considered a plus.
Screenshot from “Justice with Judge Mablean on Justice Central.TV. (YouTube)
The audition process played out on a group Zoom call with fifteen other aspiring actors and a few friendly casting directors. One by one, they asked each of us two questions: what is your name, and why are you interested in being a paid litigant?
My particular audition lasted about sixty seconds. A casting director told me they’d give me a call. They followed through that same week, asking if I could get a script tomorrow and come in to shoot in two days.
I’d landed a role on Justice with Judge Mablean featuring Judge Mablean Ephriam — never actually a real judge, but a former L.A. prosecutor. I was to inhabit the role of “Sybil Lawrence,” a woman in her mid-40s who was suing her sister, “Katy Hope,” for $1,250. Sybil alleged that Katy overspent on their father’s funeral flowers and improperly diverted those funds for personal use at her own wedding, thereby diminishing Sybil's inheritance. The episode was titled “Weddings, Wakes, and Floral Fakes.”
I was instructed to familiarize myself with my assigned show and the script. The email was gracious and friendly: “Please note that the script serves as a guideline only. Own your character’s voice and improvise!!”
When the day actually arrived, I was feeling less enthusiastic about driving across town in morning rush hour and missed my scheduled arrival time, leading to a call from the producer. The defendant was there. They needed me, their plaintiff. I got in the car.
Upon arrival at the Entertainment Studios building, a security guard chilling in front of a large film trailer directed me to an unmarked door. The bright California light disappeared behind me as I walked through a metal detector and had my bag inspected. Then I met my “litigant coordinator,” who set me up for direct deposit: $20/hr for a minimum of six hours.
Nearby, my paid courtroom audience members waited in rows of chairs, talking unhurriedly or reading books. A sweaty red-headed actor in a tank top and freckles checked in for his role. Endless rows of folding tables were lined with disposable plastic tablecloths. A craft services closet was helmed by a pleasant young woman wearing a long leather jacket, her eyes outlined perfectly in liner. The ceiling was unfinished, lit with fluorescent lights and exposed piping. Crew members stacked white doors and organized boxes. At one point, the toilet overflowed.
It was a fully operational production studio: scrappy, but turning out an industrial-grade supply of content at a price that could at least compete with — if not beat — artificial intelligence. Was this studio our antidote to AI slop? Slop that was 100% human-made?
The courtroom format we were all contributing to has dominated daytime television for decades. Judge Judy makes $900,000 per workday, and her net worth of $580 million according to Forbes makes her one of the richest onscreen performers in America. Judge Mablean Ephriam, who would be hearing my case, presided over Divorce Court for seven seasons and played herself in three Tyler Perry films. “She’s fair. She’s firm. She’s honest,” according to the main titles of her show. I was starstruck at the thought of meeting her.
The shows have also amassed incredible wealth for Byron Allen himself. Allen, a former comedian who at 18 was the youngest stand-up to perform on The Tonight Show, purchased the Weather Channel through Allen Media Group for $300 million in 2018, and made an offer of about $14 billion for Paramount Studios in 2024 — though CNBC pointed out that Allen “has a long history of media bids that haven’t materialized.” In 2022, he purchased two homes in Beverly Hills for a combined $32 million and a Malibu estate for $100 million — “the most ever for an African American buyer in the U.S.,” according to The Hollywood Reporter.
I learned that I was in “slot two,” so there was one case filming before mine and there would be at least two more filming after. In hair and makeup, I talked through the episode with a producer and met my sister “Katy” — an ad executive for TikTok in real life. We rehearsed inside a bland greenroom with a yellow abstract painting behind a desk and drop ceilings. Other producers scurried by carrying out various tasks.
Though improv was encouraged, when I veered too far off script in rehearsal, I was pushed back onto the page.
“Do people know this is scripted?" I casually asked the producer as we rehearsed.
“No,” he replied.
"I bet this was written by AI, right?"
"No," he said, unoffended. "I wrote it."
While we waited, Katy and I talked in hushed voices about what had brought us here: We both wanted to try something new, have a little adventure. Her two kids were almost the same age as mine and she had a hard out to pick one of them up.
As showtime neared, I was handed a folder of “evidence”: photographs, receipts, and text messages. A prop woman outfitted me in a wedding ring because I forgot to wear my own.
Finally we were called in. “Katy” and I entered and stood at our respective podiums. A group of actors sat behind us, intently watching the scene that would unfold. "All rise,” a tall bailiff in full uniform with a subtle mohawk said. His eyes caught the camera and we did another take.
Then he swore us in. “Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?” Katy and I, playing fake characters in a fake case that was made to look real, both said yes.
We proceeded with our arguments. I threw dirty glances at Katy, and she looked back at me in disgust. Judge Mablean decided in my favor and awarded me $420 fake dollars. The vibe throughout the day at Entertainment Studios was light, even jovial. Fewer people in Hollywood are working, and everyone in that building has a job.
Soon there will be more jobs, as Byron Allen is expanding his footprint on broadcast television. After Stephen Colbert's Late Show ends its run on May 21, Allen will take over the coveted slot on CBS, playing back-to-back episodes of Comics Unleashed and Funny You Should Ask every weeknight.
The year-long agreement is set up as a time-buy, meaning that CBS is selling the airtime to Allen rather than producing its own content. “They don’t want to spend any money, so they’re going to make money,” David Letterman said of the arrangement on The Barbara Gaines Show, a chat hosted on Letterman’s YouTube channel by his longtime producer. “They charge Byron Allen some reasonable price. He sells all the advertising for his Comics Unleashed and it’ll be, I think, 90 minutes or two hours of comics talking about funny stuff.“
As my shoot ended and I made my way out of Entertainment Studios, I was offered another role as a paid audience member for one of Allen’s comedy formats, filming inside the same production studio. But a nearby actor who had previously taken the gig advised against it, saying that audience members have to watch comedians rehearse their routines over and over again before the actual filming. “It’s not funny,” he told me.
Kelly Loudenberg is an artist, writer, and filmmaker who likes to interrogate the edges of coercion and culpability.
