Tim Davie, the CEO of the BBC’s commercial arm, BBC Worldwide, has said the UK’s creative industries must act more aggressively as the UK prepares to leave the European Union.
Speaking at the Festival of Marketing on Thursday, Davie said a new mindset is needed post-Brexit to achieve increased scale for businesses to ensure they can square up to much larger global competition and boost exports.
“We should be more aggressive [in future],” Davie said.
“If you look at where the real value is being created in creative industries – the billion dollar businesses – I would say there seems to be something in an age of globalisation around UK’s ability to do things which we need to get energised on.
“One is to get to scale from a UK position…We’re not that used to growing really big businesses and the history of the UK and the creative industries often is that you get to a certain scale, you see a few million quid and you’re out of there.”
Davie also said the UK needed to boost its ability to export its formats, ideas and content.
“Our export numbers are not as good as they should be. If you look at the other European players in the context of Brexit, they are all tooled up in their ability.”
Davie’s comments come as the Culture, Media and Sport Committee launches an inquiry into the impact of Brexit on the creative industries.
While 52% of Brits voted to leave the EU in June, 96% of executives in creative jobs voted to remain, which Davie said has left many execs “discombobulated”.
“Without doubt the biggest villain here is uncertainty – it’s very dangerous territory,” he said.
“What we’re lacking here is not indecision; we’re lacking certainty of direction and plan.
“That is without doubt the problem for us as a nation. When you venture over our borders, from a brand perspective, people are not obsessing about us.
“96% of execs in creative industries voted to stay in – so they’re discombobulated, from a human perspective. Where is sentiment going? What’s the plan? I haven’t got a plan, I don’t know what the plan is and that does present real risk.”
However, despite being presented with a host of challenges of operating in a post-Brexit Britain, Davie said he was still optimistic about the future.
“Step back from the whole thing and we’re actually blooming good,” he said.
“What’s fascinating is that deep trust in Britian…there is rapid growth [in the creative industries] and it comes through our heritage as brilliant storytellers…we have a creative spirit in this nation, we care and that puts us in an incredible position.”
