London calling?

30 June 2008

For all that the new BBC Trust appears to be an exercise in self-flagellation, its recent finding that its own BBC news service is too "London-centric" has reopened the debate about capital bias.

In a report on the BBC's impartiality in news and current affairs, the BBC Trust said the Beeb was "not meeting properly its core purpose to inform democracy". It studied a sample of 136 news reports on health and education and found not a single one mentioning the situation outside the capital. Inevitably, that was the cue for regional independent producers to complain about how hard it is to get a commission.

In the same week, Doug Richard, head of g2i partner Library House, was quoted in the press bemoaning the fact that he had to base his new business, Trutap, in King's Cross instead of Cambridge, where Library House is based. Why? Because he couldn’t persuade his employees to move to Cambridge. “We were pulling in programming staff from places such as Google and Yahoo. The average age of employees at Trutap (excluding me) is about 25. They didn’t want to be in Cambridge, they wanted to be based in London. Shame.”

Now there are myriad reasons why companies are based in London. Some feed off the financial sector. Some want proximity to their major customers and suppliers, including international clients using London’s airports. Some, frankly, just want to live here. In the BBC’s case, the historical reality is that the major broadcasters and publishers have always been based in the capital, partly to be near the seat of government. In turn, much of the production sector chooses to be near the broadcasters and publishers – which helps explain why, despite reports about the imminent demise of Soho, post-production company Evolutions moved into Sanctuary's old building in Great Pulteney St this month and Technicolor announced plans for a new building in Lexington St. It's the cluster effect – and as Silicon Valley demonstrates, clusters are good things.

To be fair to Auntie, the Beeb has already done its bit for geographical diversity. Its controversial decision to move of all its production assets to the new Media City in Salford may well spawn a whole new support industry. More importantly, over the long-term, geographical location is bound to get more diverse as smaller companies take advantage of opportunities to network their remote employees and work as a virtual company from multiple homes and offices.

The bottom line is that we’re all building businesses in London for good reasons. It’s the capital city. It’s where everything’s happening. It’s a great place to be. Get over it.

By David Longworth, Webster Buchanan Research