No brain drain over BBC move
Feb 24 2010 by jez Davison, Evening Gazette
THE BBC’s decision to move part of its operation to a multi-million pound development in Salford could help Teesside retain home-grown digital talent, a leading creative professional has claimed.
Five departments - Radio 5Live, Sport, Children’s, Learning and Future Media and Technology - are due to be housed in Salford’s MediaCity UK complex in Greater Manchester by the end of next year.
The move has sparked fears that Teesside-based broadcast professionals could be lured across the Pennines, continuing a traditional brain drain of talent from the region.
Despite being regarded as one of the North-east’s economic pillars, Teesside’s creative and digital hub has seen the departure of well established firms such as Seed Animation, Moshine and Qurios Entertainment - the former moving to London after hitting “a glass ceiling” on Teesside.
However Jim TerKeurst, director of Teesside University’s £12m Institute of Digital Innovation (IDI), said the BBC relocation could help to stem the haemorrhaging of creative talent from Teesside.
He said: “The BBC moving up to Salford is hugely important for the North. I see the North-west as a huge potential collaborator. There’s a lot of talent here in the North-east and we can work with the North-west to increase our creative and digital competitiveness.”
He said collaboration would be made easier if transport links between the North-east and the North-west were improved. Last week Network Rail unveiled a £530m master plan to improve services on congested routes in northern England and Teesside business leaders are putting pressure on government to drive through rail improvements.
