Andy Street speaks out
5 July 2023
Andy Street gives British Screen Forum keynote in London
Andy Street speaks out on region's screen infrastructure transformation
West Midlands Mayor Andy Street has said that the city of Birmingham was not “sufficiently mature” to host Channel 4’s national headquarters in 2018.
Five years ago, Leeds was chosen over Manchester and Birmingham to be the location of Channel 4‘s new ‘national headquarters’, which exists alongside C4’s Horseferry Road headquarters in London.
Back then, Street claimed that Birmingham had a compelling case based on “unrivalled connectivity, the diverse and young nature of our population and the strength of our creative and digital economy”.
But in a keynote at the British Screen Forum, the Conservative Mayor said that part of the reasoning behind the bid was that “we saw it as a way of jumpstarting a sector where our performance was poor”.
He added: “What was said to us was that the infrastructure supporting the sector in the West Midlands wasn’t sufficiently mature, and with the benefit of hindsight I think they’re probably right.”
Reflecting on the structural improvements that have been made since, Street said he was grateful for the “wake up call” the city got back in 2018. He pointed to the creation of Create Central, which has been instrumental in many of the creative developments in the West Midlands.
”We said we would learn from this and be honest in our reflections. What we decided then was that the content production subsector of it would be a real focus of our economic development,” he added.
In recent years, Birmingham has become a burgeoning production force. Notably, Digbeth Loc. Studios recently opened for bookings with the ambition to support 760 local jobs and contribute over £30m to the West Midlands economy. So far, Shine TV’s cookery series MasterChef and its spin offs are all set to move to the hub in 2024.
Next door at The Bond, Rumpus Media’s live show Late Night Lycett on Channel 4 has also recently wrapped up its first series.
In a conversation that looked to ask how regions can build sustainable, long-term growth in the audiovisual sector outside the South East of England, Street pointed to the decision to make Digbeth the key focal point for creative content in the West Midlands.
“You get a cluster and a sense of identity” he explained. “Hopefully, with support from the other regions, you get the needed momentum and critical mass to achieve change.”
Mixed messages for BBC
Street also highlighted that the BBC’s regional headquarters has also had the greenlight, with building beginning at The Tea Factory and is expected to be ready for staff to move into by 2026.
“Tim Davie is a man who keeps his word,” said Street, who praised the director general for his investment into the region. “I find him to be an exceptional leader who makes stuff happen.”
However, the Mayor still believes that the BBC could do more to represent the West Midlands.
“If you look at the portion of programming that comes from the whole of the Midlands, it runs between 2-3%, even though we pay 19% of the licence fee.”
Moving forward, Street would like to see a more mixed ecology of original commissions emerging from the region, but for now considers established productions moving to the area as “equally important.”
“The only way to shift that 2% production figure in the short term is by moving productions in and building up a set of skills that support a show like that, but long term, we’ll need to produce more local IP.”
Reproduced with kind permission from Broadcast, article by Heather Fallon