Creative Industries: earning £8m every hour 4 Feb 2014

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New figures released by DCMS reveal that the Creative Industries are earning £8 million every hour for the UK, or £71.4 billion every year. The figures have been calculated using a new formula developed with NESTA over the past two years. They include the film, television and music industries and show that:

Gross Value Added of the Creative Industries was £71.4bn in 2012 or 5.2% of the UK economy;
This is a 15.6% increase since 2008, compared to a 5.4% increase for the economy as a whole;
The GVA of 9% between 2011 and 2012 was higher than for any other industry;
In 2011 Creative Industries accounted for 8% of all export income;
In 2012 UK artists created 5 of the top 10 bestselling albums on the planet; and
The UK continues to excel at games design: the Edinburgh company Rockstar North’s Grand Theft Auto 5 made $1bn in its first 3 days of release.

In an editorial the Guardian comments “some will argue these successes are too commercial to reveal much of meaning about the health of the arts in Britain, but there is a false dichotomy between the public and commercial faces of culture. ACE estimates that for every pound the government invests in the arts, the UK economy grows £4, a statistic borne out by the recent history of British film, which was an endangered species before lottery funding arrived in the 1990s and is now in rude health. Rewards for public funding at the grassroots level are harder to quantify but equally tangible: Mr McQueen found his calling at Goldsmiths and has been supported by the publicly funded Tate galleries. Adele is a graduate of the state-backed Brit school of performing arts. Ms Dench and Mr Coogan have worked extensively for the BBC, while the games industry is supported by likes of the University of Abertay in Dundee.”

Culture Secretary Maria Miller said “these incredible statistics are confirmation that the Creative Industries consistently punch well above their weight, outperforming all the other main industry sectors, and are a powerhouse within the UK economy.” Gov.uk, Guardian, NESTA