Industry in creative mood as BadWolf gets ready to howl
The creative industries sector in Wales generates nearly £1bn a year, according to official figures. And the value of the sector to Wales increased by nearly a fifth in just five years, the figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show.
Film, television and radio comprise the fastest-growing sector, increasing nearly fourfold in value from £30.2m in 2010 to £108.9m in 2015.
And that’s set to grow with the arrival of a new production company promising major new productions in the capital.
This spring, work commenced on converting a former glass factory in Cardiff’s Trident Park into a 250,000 sq ft studio for Bad Wolf, the film and TV production company set up in the city by former BBC executives Julie Gardner and Jane Tranter.
Bad Wolf plans to film all its forthcoming productions in the studio, including the series A Discovery of Witches, based on Deborah Harkness’ fantasy novel, and His Dark Materials, an adaption of Philip Pullman’s trilogy.
They will be just the latest major productions shot in Wales since the BBC brought Doctor Who to Cardiff more than 12 years ago.
In 2015, the combined creative industries in Wales were worth £825.4m, according to calculations of gross value added (GVA) – a measure of the value of goods and services produced – by the ONS.
Although the value of the industry in the country has fallen 1% compared to 2014, when it was worth £835.9m, it is 17% higher than in 2010, when it was worth £708.4m.
Not every sector has seen success of the sort that television, film and radio has. The value generated by publishing in Wales has dropped 65% from £103m in 2010 to £35.7m in 2015, the biggest fall in the UK.
And while TV and film have grown rapidly, Wales still accounts for a tiny share of the sector’s production in the UK.
The sector where Wales has the biggest share of the total UK GVA is design and designer fashion at 3.8%. The lowest is film, TV, radio and photography at 0.7%.
In addition, the average person in Wales gets relatively little benefit from the creative industries overall compared to their counterparts in other parts of the UK.
The creative industries in Wales were worth an average of just £266 per person in 2015, the lowest rate in the UK, compared to £1,342 per person in 2015 for the UK as a whole, with the London and the South-East still the area where the sector is most likely to be based.
Across the UK, the creative industries generated £87.4bn a year for the economy in 2015.
The value of the industry was 7% higher than in 2014, when it was worth £81.6bn, and was 34% higher than in 2010, when it was worth £65.2bn.