Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt commits to digital industry support

The creative industries are the “biggest single economic opportunity the UK has”, according to Jeremy Hunt, the Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport.

Speaking at our exclusive Q&A event at the Internet Advertising Bureau, Hunt stressed the Government’s commitment to helping businesses exploit the opportunity provided by the internet and providing superfast broadband across the country by 2015.

“Our creative industry is the biggest single economic opportunity the county has at the moment,” he said. “When you start to look at what we have [in terms of advertising, film, TV creation and exporting], we’re probably the second best country in the world at the creation of digital content.”

Hunt said the web gives the UK “an extraordinary opportunity as a country, because the internet is effectively the opening of a new global trade route.”

He cited web-connected TVs as the next major milestone for online creativity, but said the potential will only be fulfilled if the infrastructure is in place to deliver high-speed broadband nationwide.

“If we want to maintain our lead as the country where all the most exciting advertising innovations are happening, then we need to have a superfast broadband network that can cope,” Hunt said. “We need to get this right, so we’ve made it our objective for Britain to have the best superfast broadband network in Europe by 2015.

“If we’re going to allow our creative industries to expand, we’ll need speeds to improve,” he added.

The Government is also conscious the UK has a London-centric media industry, restricting local media’s influence. Hunt said there’s an opportunity, therefore, for the UK to become the first country in the world to develop the next generation of truly cross-platform local media opportunities.

“I’ve got rid of the cross-media ownership rule at regional and local levels, making it possible for newspapers to own local TV franchises and radio stations,” he said. “We need a model whereby local media operators can follow their consumers wherever they go, from web to iPods to iPads to TV to radio, and we need to allow business models to emerge around this.”

Responding to questions from a select audience – which included Google UK country director for agencies Mark Howe, Channel 4 head of new media Errol Baran and IAB chairman Richard Eyre – Hunt once again placed his support behind the ASA’s extension of the CAP Code to brand websites ad social media.

He also spoke of the need for serial entrepreneurs in the UK, especially within the creative industries.

“I’d like to have a generation of more gutsy entrepreneurs in this country,” he said.