BBC move north could translate to thousands of jobs
THE Director General of the BBC has said its move north to MediaCity will be a magnet for other creative and technology companies, potentially bringing thousands of new jobs to the region.
Mark Thompson was speaking to around 500 business chiefs at the CBI North West annual dinner, held at The Point, Lancashire County Cricket Club, last night.
In his keynote speech Mr Thompson set out the economic benefits to the region of moving six departments – Breakfast, Children’s, Sport, Radio 5 Live, Learning, Future Media & Technology – to Salford this year.
He said the move was making sure regions outside London share in the economic benefits the BBC generates by investing the licence fee. He said for every £1 the Corporation receives from taxpayer in the form of the licence fee, it generates another £1 in Gross Value Added (GVA).
The North West has more than 300,000 people working in the creative sector with around 30,000 businesses responsible for 16% of regional output, compared to just 8% for the sector nationally. But according to Mr Thompson, the BBC’s move will act as a further catalyst for growth within the sector and beyond.
“BBC North and MediaCity should mean great programmes… but for the region it should also mean investment and jobs. BBC North itself means many hundreds of job in the North West. If it lives up to its potential it could mean thousands,” he said.
He added: “At the BBC we are doing everything we can to stimulate growth and sustainability both within and beyond the creative industries. BBC North and its role as the linchpin of MediaCity is a good example of this.
“It’s using us as an anchor tenant to begin to build something that will be much much bigger than the BBC broadcasting centre.
“We hope that our decision to move the lion’s share of research and development to Salford will begin to help make, alongside the University of Salford, MediaCity a magnet not just for world class creativity but for world class technology and above all for innovation in bringing those two things together.”
The BBC’s move is now well underway: more than 1,000 people are on site now and that figure will grow to 2,000 by Christmas.
Mr Thompson added that for all the bad press the move had received in national publications, with many overplaying existing staff’s reluctance to decamp, the BBC had been successful in getting more people to relocate than most government departments achieve when they move to regional cities.
“The impression from the press is that there is a strong ingrained prejudice against the north, which is not true,” he said.
