Our Friend in the East: Nikki O’Donnell

Our Friend in the East: Nikki O’Donnell

By Nikki O'Donnell,
Tuesday, 22nd August 2017
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Welcome to Norwich – a Fine City. Whoever came up with that, emblazoned on signs on the way into Norwich, was spot on. It really is.

Not just one but two beautiful cathedrals, a thriving marketplace, nice-looking castle, lots of pretty, olde worlde pubs and plenty of cobblestones. Add to that, lovely countryside and the fabulous north Norfolk coast.

So far, so idyllic – but perhaps it’s no surprise that, the other day, I found myself talking with a group of creative media people, all worrying that there are too many young, talented people making their way out of Norfolk.

Hosted by the Norwich University of the Arts, which has a track record of getting its students into employment, we were in a creative space. But when you look at the population figures, Norfolk is a bit “top-heavy”, as the demographers would say. A buxom population graph is dominated by a larger-than-average older population.

I have nothing against that, of course: some of my favourite people fit into that top segment of the graph. But I do worry for the future of our creative industries when it feels like the new talent is relentlessly heading out for the bright lights.

It’s a well-trodden life path: grow up here, disappear when you need your first break, look for someone to take a chance on a newbie, then come back to your roots when you’ve earned your stripes. That’s great, in lots of ways – well done, the talented youngsters who go out there and grab everything that London has to offer. (For it is London that’s still the big draw. No wonder – it vibrates with life, energy and diversity.) But I think we’re all missing a trick.

"If we’re not careful, we will cement those old stereotypes before the next generation has a chance to redefine what’s really going on."

We have just relaunched the RTS in the East and hosted our first regional RTS awards for more than a decade. Things had dwindled a bit here and it had begun to feel dominated by the regional news programmes and not a lot else.

But, wonderfully, there are signs of a transformation! Our awards night was jam-packed with every creative media type you could imagine. And all looking for a way to connect, to say: “We’re here, we can do this creative thing outside London.”

I want that to continue. I want this place to grab that youthful, vibrant, full-of-opportunity feeling and keep it going.

Apart from anything else, a healthy and truly representative media industry should surely be made up of the whole of the UK, not just those who make their way to a big city.

Think how many great talents might have been lost because we weren’t broad-minded enough to be anything other than metropolitan.

So, to everyone seeking and offering opportunities – let’s work a bit harder. Look at all those media businesses trying to grow outside the London bubble. There are opportunities in Norwich, not just cobblestones and pretty scenes.

Our business correspondent always says that you can drive down a country road around here and suddenly find you’re outside a global technology company. There’s far more than oil seed rape growing in our beautiful countryside. So, I guess our job is to make that clearer and to work harder to foster, support and grow the talent we already have.

We can all be a bit lazy. It’s so easy to tell the story of the UK via the big cities, the court cases, the crime and the politics, throwing in something gritty up North and off we go to East Anglia for some green fields and rural stuff.

Before you know it, no one realises there’s more to it than that. If we’re not careful, we will cement those old stereotypes before the next generation has a chance to redefine what’s really going on.

Nikki O’Donnell is editor of BBC Look East.