Media Regulation
Impress, the alternative press regulator to the Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO), recently announced that it has applied for official recognition under the Royal Charter. In order to do so, the Press Regulation Panel will assess whether Impress meets the Leveson criteria, which recommends "voluntary, independent self-regulation".
In a speech given at the London School of Economics, Walter Merricks, Impress' Chair, announced that "JK Rowling and Max Mosley have the reason and the resources to support decent standards of journalism and we are grateful to them for helping to get Impress off the ground." The Alexander Mosley Charitable Trust will donate £3.8 million to Impress in order to cover the first four years of expenditure. Merricks went on to admit that Impress was "an unusual self-regulator" due to the funding.
It is, however, important to note that Impress is put forward as entirely independent of the publishing industry. It will purportedly act as an alternative to IPSO, which regulates most national newspapers and has been criticised by the industry as "not [being] independent enough". We will have to wait and see whether Impress' application for official recognition is successful.
High End Drama at the front of Strategy
In a report from IHS Technology Television Programming Intelligence, it was announced that "High-end TV drama is increasingly front and centre of strategy as linear broadcasters and on-demand platforms attempt to hook audiences and subscribers." It has since been suggested that "newer entrants such as AMC, Showtime and Starz have been boosting their investments in top-quality programming".
IHS went on to report that scripted drama in the US grew 16% in 2014 and that 2015 is likely to have had a similar increase, as by the end of 2015, "78% of US network dramas had sold internationally".
The report concluded by suggesting that this volume posed a threat to established drama producers, and that a "squeeze could take place due to high volumes and competition for the best distribution".
Creative industries worth almost £10 million an hour to UK Economy
In a recent government press release, new figures revealed that the UK's creative industries are now worth £84.1 billion per year to the UK economy, which equates to £9.6 million per hour.
This spans across the full creative industry sectors from film to video games, and it is set to last through 2016 due to another "blockbuster year ahead". Minister for Culture Ed Vaizey has commented that "the creative industries are one of the UK's greatest success stories, with British musicians, artists, fashion brands and films immediately recognisable in nations across the globe. Growing at almost twice the rate of the wider economy and worth a staggering £84 billion a year, our creative industries are well and truly thriving and we are determined to ensure its continued growth and success."
The statistics can be downloaded here.
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