Pact to open Leeds post to support TV growth in UK’s nations and regions

UK trade body Pact is set to open a new office in Leeds to aid members of the organisation from the nations and regions to grow their businesses.

Pact will open its new office, which will host a new ‘out of London’ (OoL) team by summer 2019.

The new positions will be tasked with doing more to help Pact’s OoL members grow their businesses, win more commissions and take advantage of growing international opportunities.

One key new role will work with members in all of the production centres around the UK and will report into the newly created business development and global department headed up by Dawn McCarthy-Simpson (pictured).

The move arrives is in part due to the high number of productions taking place outside of London. Nearly 50% of total UK original programming spend is now in the UK’s nations and regions.

Additionally, Pact is developing and launching new services named the ‘Business Accelerator’ and the ‘Production Accelerator’.

These new services will be free for all Pact members and will focus on helping new start-ups and those who have been in business for several years and are looking to grow their businesses. The business accelerator will focus on what indies need to know to run and manage a better business, including access to finance, personnel issues, cash flow and attracting investment.

The production accelerator will help those companies who are looking to improve their creative offer, better manage production processes and to ensure that they are managing and exploiting their IP effectively and profitably.

The aim of these new services is to help more companies get to scale more quickly or to avoid some of the many pitfalls that can occur when running a small business.

Sara Geater, Pact chair, said: “The TV landscape in the UK is changing and with more original programming spend in the Nations and Regions it makes absolute sense for Pact to expand its services to ensure that it is able to assist its members across the whole of the UK.

“These new services show a real commitment from Pact to its members in helping them access a wealth of information and opportunities to build successful businesses.”

John McVay, Pact CEO, added: “We know from member feedback that there is a need for specialist help and advice for small indies to grow their businesses and as the trade body for indies across the UK, we know that we are best placed to provide this help.

“Opening up a Leeds office is a natural step given the way in which the market is travelling, and we look forward to engaging more with our members across the UK”.