Written evidence from Screen England
1. INTRODUCTION
1.1 The commercial creative industries play
a central role in the UK economy and generate significant profile
for the UK abroad, at a time when technology is offering new platforms,
distribution mechanisms and revenue opportunities for the creative
content industries.
1.2 The Regional Screen Agencies have developed
significant experience in developing and growing the creative
industries outside London. The agencies are small and effective;
they contain key staff with in-depth industry knowledge, expertise,
networks and contacts. They already work closely with the commercially
focused private sector in linking together expertise, ideas and
talent.
1.3 The nine Screen Agencies conform to the conventional
boundaries of the English regions. With their umbrella body, Screen
England, they are currently in the process of re-configuring and
consolidating the way in which they work. They are well positioned
to provide expert business support to creative companies; they
have a wealth of experience across the creative industries and
have become adept at raising and combining public and private
investment. They form a bridge to the commercial entertainment
industry for local companies and make it their business to be
knowledgeable on current business models and technology developments
in the industry. These are all vital for successful creative industry
development and are all areas that are difficult to create within
the new LEPs.
2. BUSINESS SUPPORT
2.1 The Screen Agencies' local knowledge
and industry experience bring a particular expertise to targeted
business support for small creative content businesses:
— Between 2006 and 2009 the Screen Agencies
provided practical business support, including skills, investment
and expert advice to more than 13,500 SMEs.[96]
— Screen West Midlands Business Support
Partnership with Business Link and the local RDA was recognised
by the DCMS and BIS (Then BERR) as an exemplar of best practice.
— Northern Film & Media's business
support scheme cost £200K and resulted in new turnover for
participating businesses of £7.2 million.
3. RAISING AND
MERGING PUBLIC
AND PRIVATE
INVESTMENT
3.1 As private limited companies, the Screen
Agencies have had to be entrepreneurial and resourceful in raising
and investing money. They have become adept at leveraging and
channeling a mix of private and public investment, for instance:
— Over a three year period the Agencies
raised £78 million of investment into the regional creative
sectors.
— Northern Film & Media and Screen West
Midlands have formed formal partnerships with Venture Capital
Funds to make commercial investments into the creative sectors
using a mix of public and private finance.
— EM Media secured £6 million ERDF
investment funding for local companies and content projects, the
investments created over £33 million of investment into the
region and 563 jobs.
4. MARKET ACCESS
4.1 As part of the global entertainment
industry the Screen Agencies provide a bridge for creative businesses
between city-level clusters, regional and national networks, and
the international market. Much of their work is bringing creative
businesses to the international market. The Screen Agencies run
active market access programmes with managed commercially orientated
trade visits to markets around the world. They also bring global
industry experts into the regions to engage with local talent:
— Screen South organised a trade visit
to the UK for American delegates including production executives
from 20th Century Fox, Paramount, Dreamworks, Disney, HBO, and
two independent producers. This provided local creative companies
with unprecedented access to global executives.
— South West Screen is an accredited partner
administering UKTI funding for British film, TV and digital media
companies exhibiting abroad, South West Screen led the UK-wide
delegation to the Annecy Animation Festival and market in France.
20 companies from across the UK representing top British animation
talent were funded to attend and exhibit their innovative projects
and ideas to the global marketplace.
5. CREATIVE INDUSTRIES
AND NEW
TECHNOLOGY
5.1 The Agencies are rooted in the film
industry but understand the rapid changes taking place in the
content industries more generally—new genres, new technologies,
new business models. As micro payment technologies become ubiquitous,
revenue models will shift and the production cost base will evolve,
more earnings will belong to the musicians, film and television
producers and games creators. The relationship with audiences
and fans will be the closest ever and the Screen Agencies have
been actively engaged in ensuring that creative talent is fully
equipped to exploit this impending shift.
— Northern Film & Media created a fund
for investment into the development of content for the i-Pad prior
to the actual launch of the technology. Alongside partner Channel
4, it also invested £34K into Facebook app Mirror Me which
achieved unprecedented success for its digital media developer
Ideonic after winning the coveted Media Guardian Innovation Award
in March 2010.
— Screen East pioneered a project to enable
downloads of local archive footage to mobile phones via Bluetooth.
— Screen Yorkshire and Screen West Midlands
formed formal partnerships with 4IP resulting in a £6 million
project to develop new media business models, companies and content
applications.
6. EXPERTISE
6.1 The Screen Agencies understand the public
sector and its needs but are constituted as limited companies
and most are now multi million pound independent businesses with
Boards made up of leading industry figures, including Stephen
Frears, John Howkins, Cameron McCracken, Steve Morrison, Samir
Shah, Jeremy Thomas, Sandy Lieberson and Kip Meek. The key creative
staff of the agencies are multi award winners and have all got
long and successful CVs and credits from working in the creative
industries, with them comes the international networks they have
built up over their careers.
7. WIDER CONTEXT
7.1 For such a tiny island the work of the
UK's creative talent is exceptionally popular. Wherever films
are produced, music created, television written and directed and
games coded, British talent will be high up in the creative teams.
(i)
7.2 It is vital that we are able to harness
the economic potential of the creative industries across the whole
country if we are to build real growth for the UK's creative industries.
7.3 The Regional Screen Agencies were established
in 2002/04 to grasp the huge cultural, social and economic opportunities
offered to every region by the commercial creative industries,
film, TV, web, mobile, games and music. Key national sponsors
of the RSAs are the UK Film Council and the RDAs, both now to
be phased out.
7.4 The remit of the RSAs is wide, covering
all aspects of creative industries: production, training, locations,
business development, archives, education, festivals, cinemas.
The bulk of investment (over 50%) is in production and business
development: ie activities which bring immediate hard economic
returns.
7.5 The RSAs are designed to be industry
focused and entrepreneurial. They are independent entities with
industry boards. They have a small core staff (typically 15-20
people), low overheads and simple, transparent operating procedures.
7.6 RSAs take an entrepreneurial rather
than bureaucratic approach, drawing funding from a number of sources
to deliver a high economic return for their regions. However,
funding is only part of the picture. Because they are industry-led
and agile, RSAs use seed investment, influence, leverage, industry
expertise and partnership, all working together to make an impact.
7.7 The RSAs have become efficient and dynamic
entities for supporting creative industry development within LEP
areas. We urge LEPs to consider the importance of the commercial
creative sectors to the country and to their local areas and we
welcome discussions on how the RSAs can help with this development
strategy.
REFERENCE (i)
Combined performance and achievements of the Regional Screen Agencies—Olsberg
SPI 2009.
NOTES
With 2.5 million hours of television broadcast
in 2008 and revenues of £11.2 billion the UK's television
market is second only to the USA in revenues per capita. (OFCOM,
2008)
The UK film industry generates £3.7 billion
in revenues and the UK is the third largest film market with UK
films and co-productions accounting for 21% of releases and capturing
31% of the global box office. Five out of the top 20 films globally
in 2009 were of UK origin. In that year 17% of all major film
awards went to UK films and talent. (UK Film Council, 2009)
The UK's Games market generated £3.3 billion
in 2009 making it the 5th largest games market in the world.
The UK is the third largest music market in
the world, in 2008 one in ten albums sold in the US were made
by a UK act, four of the top ten best selling artists were British.
(UK Music, 2009)
12 August 2010
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