Insider Media Limited

There is one industrial sector which is often overlooked but whose economic contribution is growing fast. The East Midlands has seen significant growth in the creative content industries over the last decade.

Experian’s June 2010 report Unlocking the potential of the creative and cultural sector: A Meta Review of the Evidence Base, East Midlands states that the East Midlands’ Creative Business growth rate is 10.4 per cent compared to 8 per cent in the rest of England, and that the number of creative and cultural businesses in the region has grown to 16,000, employing 150,000 people.

With cuts hitting every sector, creative businesses may well help to assure the region’s continued economic growth.

Creative industries traditionally have often been hard to define and measure given their volume and size. For this reason their contribution to the economy has been hard to quantify. For the past eight years EM Media, Screen Agency for the East Midlands has been evidencing their value and impact locally, nationally and internationally.

The film and games industries in particular have been thriving with Nottingham home to award-winning feature film production companies and one of the fastest growing private technology businesses in the UK – Monumental Games - sales grew 146 per cent between 2006 and last year, from £346,000 to £5.2m.

Since 2002, a staggering 42 British films have been produced in the East Midlands generating almost £180m for the local economy. All have reached their target (global) audience with over half of the box office generated stemming from overseas.

I credit the growth to being able to match talent with the right combination of targeted business support and access to finance. It is the range of timely, targeted interventions that has enabled local businesses to thrive and their output to reach the international marketplace.

EM Media has set a consistent approach to developing new, emerging and in-transition talent; the 82 short films made since 2002 have furthered the careers of over 1,200 writers, directors, producers, and technical crew and have contributed to the establishment of feature film production companies. Over 70 per cent of our feature film investments have been in first and second-time directors.

Brokering the links between local creative businesses and industry has meant they have found the right partners to work with which has helped them gain credibility and enabled local businesses to compete on the global stage. In addition to the 42 films, six games have been released across the iPad, iPhone, PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Nintendo Wii and Facebook platforms.

But it isn’t just the content generating businesses that have benefited from support.

Our investment in initiatives that increase opportunities for the end-user has resulted in 237 venues across the East Midlands (from cinemas to village halls) actively promoting and screening specialised film bringing independent and world cinema to the doorsteps of those who don’t have convenient access to a city centre cinema. The number of participating venues has increased from just three since EM Media began operating in 2002.

Google’s The Connected Kingdom report, points to the growth of the online sector, predicted to make up nearly 13 per cent of GDP by 2015: intelligent investment in key drivers of consumption (games, films, videos, animation, etc) at local level will be critical to ensuring the region’s cities and rural hinterland benefit from this growth.

As a result of the CSR changes to the current levels of investment and support are being made which will impact upon all industrial sectors. In order to continue to facilitate growth EM Media’s role as catalyst for that growth is needed now more than ever before.

EM Media’s economic and creative achievement reports will be available to download from December.

Debbie Williams, chief executive, EM Media