Vision+Media to look beyond the region for contracts

VISION+Media, the support body for digitial and creative industries in the North West, is looking to sell its services across the UK as a response to budget cuts.

It expects to lose around half its £6m annual budget in 18 months’ time when two of its biggest supporters – the North West Development Agency (NWDA) and the UK Film Council – fold in 2012.

Vision+Media’s chief executive Alice Morrison told TheBusinessDesk: “This is a nightmare. Our two biggest buyers will no longer exist. However there could be more opportunities.

“We don’t have to be constrained by our borders anymore and with the NWDA going there is no region. We have to transform ourselves.”

She is now eyeing a UK-wide network of some 50 Local Enterprise Partnerships, which will replace the regional development agencies in 2012, as a source of future income.

“The opportunities are completely open,” said Miss Morrison. “I’m not promoting this as something we desire, the funding model in place was fantastic for the creative and digital industries.”

She admitted Vision+Media, which employs 47 people, is likely to cut out some of its services to focus on high growth companies but she would not discuss the prospect of redundancies and no formal announcement has been made.

The body began in 2002 as a film agency but grew to support TV and video games producers and offer training and business support across the creative sector.

Miss Morrison added: “This is an opportunity to change and it’s an absolute necessity. If we stayed as we are now we would be dead.”