Nick | 10 Feb 2009, 12:22
C&binet comment: David Puttnam discusses how the creative economy can flourish in the current economic climate
Our creative industries are taking on a greater-than-ever degree of importance in these extremely challenging times. They are also being transformed by the impact of digital technologies.
Lord Carter’s recent report on Digital Britain addressed the consequences of those changes – and in particular the potential of broadband technologies to in effect transform our lives.
As Lord Carter recognised, for the creative industries the transition from the analogue age to a digital one represents a huge opportunity. But like all such transitions, it also presents considerable challenges for formally successful, and frequently complacent, incumbents - many of whom are still struggling to find ways to make money from distributing content on the internet.
But in this respect there are one or two interesting lessons to be learned from recent history – epitomised perhaps by an organisation which rejoiced in the name of FIDO - the Film Industry Defence Organisation – a seemingly ‘brilliant’ idea dreamed up in the mid 50’s by British film companies; whereby a pool of money was created, sufficient to buy the television rights to all American and British movies in order to prevent them from ever appearing on television; and in doing so, crush television at birth!
Fortunately, our creative industries have shown just a tad more foresight than those who sought to run the British film industry as a cosy duopoly in the 50’s and 60’s.
But my central point holds good – our existing strengths will count for little if we do not actively embrace the evolution of the media, and seize every scrap of advantage from it.
Yet despite the myriad changes which digital technology is bringing to our creative industries, it’s also worth remembering that a few ‘fundamentals’ remain remarkably consistent.
I would broadly place these in three categories: talent, opportunity and distribution.
Let me say a little about each; first of all – ‘Talent’.
I was enormously encouraged by the emphasis the Digital Britain report laid on skills and talent. As Lord Carter put it:
“We cannot afford to treat education and training for digital technologies as just another ‘vertical’ subject area. It underpins everything we do in the 21st Century.“
I completely agree.
One of the great successes of this Government in recognising and promoting the UK’s Creative Industries, has been the attention paid to maintaining and strengthening the talent and skill base, through enhanced education and training at every level.
If I’ve one disappointment, it’s that there appears to have been little in the way of a matching commitment from many private sector employers.
An abundance of talent of every kind is the only certain way of ensuring a bright future for the whole of the sector; combine that with a consistent supply of world class skills and you’ve held down costs whilst creating what would seem to me, an unbeatable combination.
Maybe it’s because this is self-evident that it gets so little mention, but if it is so self-evident why do I get the sense that many employers, who honestly should know better, seek to evade or avoid their very obvious responsibilities in this area?
If we fail to invest in talent for the future, we will very quickly fall behind other nations in seizing the potential offered by the digital universe.
By way of an example, I’m very fortunate in being able to visit Singapore a couple of times a year in my capacity as an adviser to their Media Development Agency. There I listen to advanced plans to ensure that 2 gigabits of connectivity are available, business to business by 2015 at the latest. Meanwhile we in this country are giving serious thought to making 2 megabits generally available. hat is in effect, 1,000th of the ambition of the Singapore Government.
Clearly one of these two options is barmy. I’ve a nasty feeling that, in our ingrained desire to ‘make do and mend’ it could be us!
Turning to the second of my ‘fundamentals – ‘Opportunity’.
You don’t have to be a genius to realise that talented people will always need a plurality of doors at which they can knock in seeking acceptance, or recognition, of the skills and ideas they have to offer.
In an ideal world, the gatekeepers at each of those doors will be open to original ideas and concepts, and have sufficient expertise to be able to sort the wheat from the chaff; although I would suggest that it’s also a good idea to take a second look at the ‘chaff’ – the history of our creative industries is full of examples of eventual success greeting once rejected ideas.
Our present system isn’t bad; but with an exponentially increasing number of platforms and opportunities we must ensure that the ‘funnel’ that takes ideas into projects and programmes is not allowed, for whatever reason, to narrow.
Imaginative commissioning and creative risk taking have been among the great strengths of our creative sectors, but I’d like to see those same qualities applied to the development of concepts and content that contains sufficient ambition to interest and excite audiences outside of this country, audiences that don’t necessarily share the more parochial of our cultural concerns.
Lastly – ‘Distribution’.
I could offer a blizzard of facts about the way in which the global appetite for content of all types has enlarged and extended in a digital world.
What’s absolutely certain is that today’s global marketplace already offers more commercial possibilities for well made content than have ever previously existed.
If we are absolutely honest, we in the UK have always been far better at creating ideas and products than marketing them. If we are to succeed in the new global marketplace we have to become far better at aligning our traditional strengths with the disciplines and opportunities that marketplace demands.
This ‘trinity’ of strengths – talent, opportunity and distribution – served us well in an analogue age, and given the right encouragement, has the potential to serve us even better in the digital era we’ve now entered.
It’s my belief that an economy based on our creative industries is considerably more sustainable in the long-term than one based on credit default swaps. Or, as Lord Turner, the chair of the FSA put it in his Economist Lecture recently:
“Not all innovation is equally useful. And in the years running up to 2007, too much of the developed world’s intellectual talent was devoted to ever more complex financial innovations.”
Over more years than I care to remember I, and other so-called ‘luvvies’ have been accused of promoting ‘fluffy’, or at best ‘marginal’ sectors of the economy like film, broadcasting and design, at a time when more hard-headed ‘realists’ insisted that our true future lay in the area of ever-more sophisticated financial instruments and services.
Well, it turns out that those self same ‘financial instruments’ were the very first things to give way when the global economic storms began to rage out of control.
Our intellectual property, on the other hand, if we carefully nurture and develop it during these hard times, could well prove to be one of the crucial drivers of growth for UK plc going forward.
I think there’s broad political agreement here.
Certainly regarding our policy ambitions – if not always, perhaps, the means of achieving them.
Digital Britain provides an invaluable roadmap for the future, and we all need to step up to the plate and ensure that we really do seize the opportunity to maximise the economic and cultural benefits of our creative industries in a digital era.
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