There’s a mood of optimism in the media world as the BBC prepares to crank up its drama output from Cardiff. But, finds Douglas Friedli, the rest of the industry is wrestling with unprecedented challenges.
It was the worst kept-secret in Welsh media: the BBC intended to concentrate its production of drama shows such as Casualty in a new centre in Cardiff’s Roath Basin.
When it was finally confirmed, the Assembly Government was eager to say that the Basin would also provide a home for a cluster of independent TV companies.
The BBC doubling its network output from Wales will have an instant, positive effect on the size of the media cake in Wales. With more production being pushed out of London, there is an opportunity for Wales, with Cardiff as its media heart, to grab some of the action.
“It’s a significant development,” says Gillian Allard, media theorist at the University of Glamorgan. “There will be a huge opportunity for content creation and for the more technical side to flourish. And it’s close to a growing cluster of digital media companies already in Cardiff Bay. There is anecdotal evidence that a CF10 postcode has a cachet a bit like Silicon Valley in California.”
But some doubt whether the BBC’s decision will help the independent sector as much as has been suggested.
“I’ve not heard of Roath Basin,” says Hywel Griffith, managing director of animator Griffilms, which is based in Caernarfon and has a smaller office in Cardiff. “Salford (the BBC’s sports and children TV centre) is more interesting to us – it takes five hours to get from Caernarfon to Cardiff, but an hour-and-a-half to get to Salford.” If anything, says Griffith, the big opportunities are further afield in countries such as Hungary, Italy and India. “We are spreading our wings outside Wales,” he says. “The work from S4C has dried up so more has to come from outside and I am glad about that. It’s spreading the customer base – you don’t want all your eggs in one basket.”
The BBC setting up in Roath Basin is great for the corporation, says Gerallt Jones, partner at law firm Hugh James, but “the challenge is making it great for Wales. There is a danger that the BBC will simply move its studios and use its own services and people, with no benefit to the indigenous industry.”
He is sceptical about the idea of a media village around the BBC’s new centre. “Why would the independent companies go? It’s a competitive industry. Will they get work from the BBC? Looking back, probably not. Are there going to be financial incentives?”
Jones suggests the Assembly Government’s forthcoming strategy should concentrate more resources on helping creative companies: “This is an area where Wales, a small country with a relatively small government, could gain an advantage. It should be able to move quickly. It’s not going out on a limb, it has proven successes.”
Griffith would also like more public sesctor investment. “The problem for us is that the start-up costs on animation projects is phenomenal. We are up against big American companies that can fund an almost-finished product to present to buyers.
“If the Assembly was able to fund projects right up to the point where they are saleable, that would be a great help. It’s a huge opportunity. In Japan the animation industry is three times as big as the steel industry. There is potential to bring a lot of money into the country,” he says.
Like many other industries, the creative sector is internationalising. That should be good news, says Rhodri Williams, director for Wales at Ofcom, the media and communications watchdog: “If you look at the export of content from Wales to the rest of the world, there are more opportunities than threats – it’s easier to export material, and easier to draw attention to your material. The world market is becoming bigger and more accessible.”
You don’t need to be based in Hollywood or London to score an international media hit these days. Newport University’s film Cow, which warns against the dangers of typing text messages while driving, has been watched by millions around the world.
Attitudes are changing, says Alex Love, director at creative and PR group Freshwater UK. “Traditionally it was thought that you had to go to London to get creative work, but people are starting to look outside the M25 at companies such as Boomerang Plus, Greenfield Media and ourselves. It’s most cost effective to use businesses outside London, and with modern communications it’s much easier.”
But some question whether Wales is positioned to take advantage. Calon TV works with international partners on shows such as Zoo Factor, billed as a “cross between a reality TV talent show and The Muppets”. The venture with Telegael Teoranta of Ireland involved storylines, scripts and puppets being created at Calon’s base in Cardiff, while the filming took place in Galway.
Calon’s commercial director Huw Walters thinks it’s too easy for TV companies in Wales to sit back and expect work to roll in. “Public broadcasting is our biggest strength in Wales, but it’s also in danger of holding us back,” he says. “If you are a producer in Wales, you can make a good turnover in the local market. We would like broadcasters in Wales to say: ‘We’re not going to fund content unless there is investment from other broadcasters’. That would mean their funding would be used to attract additional international funding.”
At the same time, there’s concern that Welsh-made content for Welsh audiences is in decline on ITV, in newspapers and on radio. “There are economic challenges in producing the level and quality of content that Wales has enjoyed in the past,” says Ofcom’s Williams. In radio, for example, he says: “It’s not so much recession related but a result of structural change in the industry. Where pressure is felt most is in services that don’t appeal to hundreds of thousands or millions of listeners. Groups tend to cut down on costs by sharing content in Wales, or with stations in England, which is very different.”
Global competition is a growing challenge, according to Allard at Glamorgan University. She says: “There’s a huge amount of development of creative industries in countries such as China and India, for example, the Bollywood film industry. Those countries tended to put an emphasis on technological skills that are deployed to good effect in creative industries such as games development. The challenge for Wales is to develop a body of skilled professionals.”
So Wales needs to broaden its appeal. “It already has a reputation in traditional media such as film and TV,” says Allard. “There is an opportunity to develop expertise in areas such as games production.”
Another notable feature of the sector in Wales has been the way companies such as Boomerang Plus and Tinopolis have bought companies beyond Wales to extend their offering. And within Wales, Rondo media was formed two years ago when Ffilmiau’r Nant and Opus TF merged.
That trend is likely to continue, says Jones at Hugh James: “It’s a consolidating industry. Small companies will find it harder to compete. The tenders are getting bigger and there is an expectation that you will have resources in-house.”
Allard adds: “In most cases, creative businesses are small and composed of a few highly skilled people. There is a danger of isolation. It’s important for companies to work together to develop strong supply chains.”
Broadcasters and producers need to know where the money’s coming from. Youtube, video piracy and TVs that can skip adverts are undermining traditional payment models.
“How is TV going to fund itself in the future?” asks Gary Thompson, director of the Institute of Advanced Broadcasting (IAB) at the University of Wales, Newport. “ITV’s business model is broken. There are multiple industries all crashing into each other. It’s a question of who will seize that opportunity.”
The institute is working on a micro-broadcasting project with Move Networks, a US group that bought Welsh TV technology company Inuk Networks in 2009. The partners will encourage people in the South Wales Valleys to create their own TV shows, which will be broadcast in the area via a dedicated channel. The pictures will be distributed using Move technology, which allows high-definition TV images to travel down standard telephone wires, cutting out the need to install fibre optic cables.
The project ticks plenty of boxes – reaching out to 60 per cent of Valleys people who don’t use broadband and creating local content in towns that are often ignored by mainstream media. Similar technology will be used to allow householders to control energy use in homes to be built at The Works in Ebbw Vale. Move and the IAB hope to test local commercial interest and, ultimately, open up new ways of paying for TV programmes.
Across Wales, a new model is being tested to replace ITV’s fading coverage: Independently Funded News Consortia (IFNCs). Three groups have applied to the UK government – not the Welsh Assembly Government – to cover Wales. They are Tinopolis; UTV with NWN Media; and ITN with Newsquest, Northcliffe Media, Tindle, Boomerang and ITV Wales staff.
Tinopolis, based in Llanelli, hopes to create a decentralised service that will avoid giving Cardiff more coverage than it is due. Chairman Ron Jones hopes to create content that others can use for free, and make money by taking a percentage of the UK Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) subsidy.
But with an election looming, it’s all getting a bit political. Shadow culture secretary Jeremy Hunt has threatened to terminate the consortia contracts if the Conservatives are elected. The DCMS aims to name the successful bidders in March and award contracts in may, getting in before the likely election date. Whoever wins, the next government is likely to take look hard look at the rules governing media. Ofcom’s Williams says: “As the barriers between traditional print, radio and TV blur into a series of services that can be accessed via numerous devices, there are questions as to whether the existing regulations are appropriate.
“You go from newspapers, which are within a self-regulated world, to TV, which is regulated, to the internet, which is almost entirely unregulated. There will be some important questions for parliament and for Ofcom in coming years to see whether the regulatory regime, which has been in place for many years, is fit for purpose.”
Any change is likely to mean more power to market forces. “One thing that is clear is that nobody is calling for greater regulation or greater restrictions to be placed on creative businesses,” says Williams. Where appropriate, there should be deregulation, giving service providers the greatest possible freedom for manoeuvre, for example, on media ownership rules.”
Also in: March 2010
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