Media Groups Head for Creative Manchester

Growth area: the city of Manchester in north-west England is enjoying the experience of new development alongside the old, especially in the creative sector where the media, TV and film industry has risen strongly in recent times.

Growth area: the city of Manchester in north-west England is enjoying the experience of new development alongside the old, especially in the creative sector where the media, TV and film industry has risen strongly in recent times.

Only a decade ago, Manchester’s biggest film and media industry attraction was Granada Studios, part of the Independent Television group that has produced Britain’s most popular drama serial, Coronation Street.

Today, the media, education and creative industries in the city in north-west England drive almost 60 per cent of Manchester’s economy.

Although the presence of international companies such as News International, and the US groups Colombia’s and Disney’s involvement in this trend has lately become more noticeable – producing more shows in this vibrant environment – it is the region’s planning, investment and ingenuity that have put the creative sector’s economic growth at the forefront of its long-term development.

“The media and creative sector is the fastest growing economic sector in Manchester and in the north of England,” said Daniel Dobson-Mouawad, the recently appointed chief executive of Pro-Manchester, a membership organisation that works towards promoting fresh business opportunities for Manchester professionals.

Dobson-Mouawad said that the number of jobs in the creative industries has risen 4.9 per cent over the last five years, with some 5,000 new posts in this sector. He expects that over the next four years an extra 18,000 jobs will be created and which prompted the creation of the Pro-Manchester company.

As a result, the size of the media and creative sector in Manchester is now comparable to the traditional leading sectors such as financial and professional services. Aviation, life-science, niche manufacturing and communications are the other key growth sectors in the city.

Manchester has created opportunities for new clusters of creative companies to be developed. The region’s economic growth has remained strong at 2.6 per cent year after year, higher than the national average.

The city’s creative industries’ zone is known as the “media corridor”, that by 2015 will link the University of Manchester and Greater Manchester’s Salford University with a digital cluster group, taking the work of academic institutions forward with novel business opportunities.

After the BBC announced two years ago that it was going to relocate some of its divisions into its newly built media centre, it became evident that Manchester – already the home city of ITV, the UK’s biggest commercial TV network – would become the second, most important creative centre in the UK after London.

The BBC will bring over the next two years an investment of 400 million pounds, relocating about 1,700 creative jobs from London to Manchester. The move includes five commissioning departments among which are its internationally renowned children’s programmes and its new-media divisions producing the corporation’s interactive content.

Over the next five years, the BBC’s substantial presence in Manchester will almost double the existing TV production operations in the city, also adding specialist TV production areas. BBC Radio Live Five production teams are also to move north-west.

The UK’s film production industry considers the BBC’s move and the re-allocation and expansion of key London-based drama production companies to Manchester as an important development and, towards the end of 2006, it plans a special event to mark it, hosted by Jon Snow, Channel 4 TV’s leading news anchor.

North West Vision, the government organisation that takes care of the rising media and creative industries sector, has awarded various funds to strengthen the film industry in the UK’s north-west through its Heritage, Access to Film and Audience Development awards.

But more importantly it serves as a facilitator for project realisation and has considerably contributed to the increased number of filming days in Manchester along with other parts of north-west England. It has also enabled well-established UK companies, such as Zig Zag Television, based elsewhere in the UK, to join the likes of Baby Cow and Hat Trick to open a Manchester base.

Zig Zag has produced more than 350 hours of factual programming in its six-year history for both terrestrial and satellite channels globally. The remit for Zig Zag North is to continue to exploit the company brand and to build on this success within the factual genre.

Heading the operation is creative director Bob Sandy, a former BBC Manchester and independent-sector series producer. Commenting on this latest move he said: “Zig Zag has strong links with Manchester; many of the company’s staff started their careers working there, so it seemed the obvious place for us to set up a regional base. Now the city has a thriving independent sector and I’m delighted that Zig Zag North will be part of this.”

Chris Moll, head of funds at North West Vision, added: “Zig Zag is one of nine renowned independent TV companies that have over the past 12 months seen the north-west as the best region in which to establish a second base, and we are delighted to be able to support them. This highlights that our regional attraction fund is acting as a catalyst for the TV industry in Manchester and across the north-west.”

One particular trend that has emerged is the development and filming of large-scale costume dramas, as a result of the concentration of production skills and relatively lower prices. This has attracted companies from across the world, including Bollywood projects.

By Rumyana Vakarelska