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Time to invest in creative growth

Freshwater was in the news again recently, but this time it was the bay in Pembrokeshire - not the company.

 

Freshwater West is one of the locations for a new Robin Hood movie, which features Russell Crowe and fellow armour-clad crusaders emerging from the sea and charging across the beach on horseback.

 

When we named the business after one of Wales’ nicest beauty spots six years ago, we never imagined Universal Studios would share our taste and give the bay so much publicity.

 

Leaving aside the unquantifiable value of stray hits on our website, the benefits to the Welsh economy of being chosen as a location for a major Hollywood movie are obvious. As well as the spending of 250 crew and 450 extras over several weeks of filming, there could be a massive longer term boost to tourism.

 

Robin Hood is the latest in a roll call of major movies to be filmed in Wales, including Edge of Love, the Dylan Thomas biopic, and Hunger, an account of the 1981 IRA hunger strike that won the Camera D’Or prize at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival.

 

Both Hunger and Edge of Love had backing from the Wales Creative IP Fund, which was set up by the Welsh Assembly to encourage film productions to come to Wales.

 

But this is only a small part of the fast changing scene in Wales’ creative sector. Of potentially much greater significance is the BBC’s recent decision to invest up to £25m in a ‘drama village’ at Roath Basin in Cardiff Bay.

 

The new production facilities will be used for Casualty, which is relocating from Bristol next summer, the Doctor Who programmes and S4C’s Pobol y Cwm. And the BBC investment will sit alongside the development of a Digital Media Centre that will serve as a base for creative businesses of all types.

 

This encouragement of the creative industries is very welcome. Estimates of the numbers employed in the sector vary, depending on your definition. But the lowest figure I’ve seen is 13,000 – and it’s definitely an industry on an upward trend.

 

The difficulty with defining the sector is that traditional distinctions between different media are fast disappearing. TV and film production companies are moving into activities previously dominated by broadcasters and publishers. PR and marketing agencies are becoming producers of video content for clients’ internal and external communications.

 

Online TV channels are now multiplying so fast it’s difficult to keep track of them. Teachers TV and Union TV are well established. Earlier this month, the regional development agency, One North East, awarded a two-year contract to TV production company Ten Alps to launch Newton TV, an online science channel supported by the Science Museum, the Royal Institution and the Open University. Next month sees the launch of Accountancy TV, following in the footsteps of channels for lawyers and bankers.

 

Accountancy TV will be funded by subscribers and advertisers, while other channels have major sponsors. All of them blend constantly refreshed video content with discussion, social networking and more conventional website content.

 

In Wales, broadcasters and newspapers have been early movers in the transition to online, multi-media thinking. TV production companies and PR agencies are also embracing the trend. And, recently, rugby supporters entered the fray with welshrugby.tv.

 

Online TV doesn’t come cheap, but it is now within the reach of most large organisations and worth looking at if they need to reach a clear target audience with regular news and information. It lends itself to major employers with a multi-site workforce or to public bodies in areas such as health, tourism, education and business.

 

But in these tough economic times investing in innovative communication is not without problems. Kent TV, launched in 2007 by the local county council, won praise for its lively content, including song-writing and animation competitions and its own soap about young people’s health issues. But it will cease production in March after its £600,000 a year budget became a casualty of major cost cuts.

 

So there are risks. But, for Wales’s creative industries, and potential investors, the opportunities are surely attractive enough to make them worth taking. With the pace of change so rapid, we can’t afford to slip behind. The path ahead could be as exhilarating as riding horseback at Freshwater West.

 

Steve Howell

 

22.2.2010

 

Steve is Chief Executive of Freshwater UK, the Cardiff headquartered public relations, public affairs and marketing consultancy.

 

 

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