Digital media and the creative industries in Scotland

Sector in Profile: Creative Industries

Digital media and the creative industries in Scotland

Digital media and the creative industries in Scotland

The creative industries sector in Scotland supports over 60,000 jobs and contributes £5 billion to our economy.

The term covers a broad variety of areas and includes a few large corporations and a number of small niche businesses. Some key industry areas include games, animation, film, television, music, design, publishing, architecture, advertising, arts and cultural businesses.

Scotland’s excellent reputation in the digital media and creative industries sector has been cemented in recent years by a series of significant innovations and developments. As new media accelerates, so does the worldwide demand for new products, innovative technology and enhanced methods of delivery.

The rapid developments in media, mobility and the internet are all currently fuelling the growth of digital media and the creative industries.

Sector growth

In 2007, the Scottish Government identified a number of key sectors which offer high-growth potential and the capacity to create economic impact for Scotland. The creative industries is one of these sectors, with an emphasis on digital content and technologies.

Worldwide, the global entertainment and media industry is predicted to be growing at a rate of 7 percent annually, with exceptionally strong growth in the mobile/wireless, internet advertising and video games sectors.


Digital Media + Creative Industries GlobalScots:

Mike Foley, EA Games

Mike Foley is Head of Corporate Development at Electronic Arts, the world’s leading interactive entertainment company. Mike and his team of M&A professionals undertake a number of acquisitions and investments in the entertainment industry every year. Prior to EA, Mike led a large number of transactions for Microsoft, Sovereign Capital private equity and as an adviser at Ernst & Young. Mike is a qualified chartered accountant, earned his MBA from Harvard Business School and his undergraduate degree from Cambridge University.


Ian Harvey, 20th Century Fox

Ian was born in Dundee, attended Harris Academy and graduating in 1979 from Dundee College of Technology (Abertay University) with a BScEE. He worked at NCR in Dundee before moving to Harris Semiconductor in Florida.

During his 5 years at Harris, Ian was designing and testing the first FPGA devices to be released in CMOS. This design background facilitated a move to California to one of the leading hard disc drive companies in the world, Western Digital. His career at WDC spanned the early design work on the industry first IDE chip set to Senior Vice President over the 10 year stay.

This stay was interrupted on by the acquisition of their group by interface leader Adaptec where Ian stayed for 3 years before turning his attention to an opportunity in a start-up company. This company was Calimetrics inc., the inventor and developer of an advanced optical disc technology, where Ian, as V.P. of Product Development, was responsible for the development of the silicon, drive firmware and media for this advanced system. This secure high capacity optical solution put him in contact with the entertainment industry, where a new opportunity presented a new challenge.

Ian moved to Twentieth Century Fox as VP Content Protection, where his role is to evaluate new technologies for the secure distribution of Fox content. These technologies include Blu-ray, where a new technology BD+, promoted by Fox, was added to the format to provide additional protection against compromise. As well as new content protection syatems and looking at new distribution channels such as SD Card, Ian is currently working on new technologies for the dinemsionalisation of 2D content to address the growing 3D market place.


Eileen Gallagher, Shed Productions

Prior to co-founding Shed Productions, Eileen was Managing Director of LWT (London Weekend Television) and Deputy Managing Director of Granada Broadcasting. She also co-created Bad Girls and The Fugitives.

Eileen's business experience and strong creative influence have been instrumental in Shed’s success. In 2002/2003 Eileen picked up two industry awards for outstanding achievements for her work with Shed and the independent production sector as a whole.

After ten years as MD and then Chief Executive of Shed Media plc. Eileen stood down at the end of 2008 to return to a creative role as CEO of Shed Productions.

In June 2010 she was awarded OBE for services to broadcasting. This followed Eileen's close involvement as Chair of Pact in securing new Terms of Trade for independent producers in the 2002 Communications Act