Commerical Creative Industries

The wider commercial, digital and creative sector sector employs up to 60,000 people in the region, with over 5,000 businesses in the sector, making up 12% of the region’s registered businesses. 

The digital media indsutry region was catapulted to the forefront in digital media indsutry in the early 1990s by internet entrepreneur, publisher and RTC North chairman, Paul Callaghan. Founder of domainnames.com, Leighton Internet, 4 Projects and Communicator Corpoaration, Paul made the region home to the UK's first virtual city, sunderland.com, and first official football club website, safc.com in 1992.

The North East is ideally located in many ways to take advantage of the three biggest markets for creative content in the UK – Edinburgh in the north; Manchester to the west; and London in the south. All of these cities have major buyers of content with mature investment communities that are warm
to the creative industries.

There is a need to learn from other areas about how to better integrate the best practice generic business support from organisations such as Business Link with specialist organisations such as Northern Film and Media, Digital City, Generator, Codeworks and others.

One NorthEast is working with partners to invest in the sector to support growth and the development of a competitive advantage – key areas include:

Codeworks: Established in 2003, Codeworks is a centre for digital innovation based in North East England. Working closely with its primary investor, One NorthEast, Codeworks creates and develops new and existing digital media technology companies based in North East England.

Arts Council England: Arts Council England works to get more art to more people in more places. We develop and promote the arts across England, acting as an independent body at arm's length from government.

Digital City Business: Digital City Business aims to promote the North East as the best place to develop your digital media, digital technology or creative business. Whether an entrepreneur with a business idea, an established business looking to expand, a start up, one that’s looking to relocate or an organisation needing product development or finance, Digital City Business can help.

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