Media Cymru celebrates five years of impact on the creative industries
15 October 2026
Wales’ creative industries are being watched by the world, as international media leaders came together for the PLAYBACK festival in Cardiff.
The event celebrated the achievements of Media Cymru, which has built an innovation ecosystem in one of the UK's fastest-growing creative economies, developing projects ranging from interactive horror movies to 3D printed sustainable movie props.
Led by the Centre for the Creative Economy at Cardiff University, Media Cymru is a consortium established in 2022 through UKRI’s flagship Strength in Places Fund programme to make Wales a global hub for media innovation. Since then, it has backed 180 R&D projects, engaged more than 1,000 creative innovators, and trained more than 1,000 industry professionals - 100 of which have gone on to new jobs. Supported businesses have created 300 additional jobs and tripled their rate of IP creation.
In 2017, Sir Peter Bazalgette led an independent review of the UK’s creative industries, which led to the strategic investment that paved the way for regional funding of programmes like Media Cymru. Speaking at PLAYBACK, he said: “We had an idea in 2017 that the government should support the funding of creative clusters around the country for the creative industries in different areas.
“Later, Media Cymru secured its funding because of the strength of their ideas.”
It’s been a hugely successful project that has continued to attract new investment from outside of the UK government. That shows that there is enormous potential and real opportunity here in Wales.
Speaking at the festival, Alison Lomax, Managing Director, YouTube UK & Ireland, said: “Wales has a thriving ecosystem within the creative industries. There's a huge opportunity here to bring together that ecosystem of traditional broadcasters, production companies and content creators. We [YouTube] see that over 80% of UK-created content is watched overseas, so the opportunity to build global audiences is absolutely huge.”
Media Cymru is transforming the Cardiff Capital Region into a global hub for media innovation.
Stephen Kinnock MP, Secretary of State for Wales, was also in attendance to celebrate Media Cymru’s success. He said: “Wales's creative and media sector is something the world is paying attention to, and the UK Government is focused on helping it develop and grow.”
Since it started, 60 new products, services and experiences born from Media Cymru’s R&D have already reached the market and end users. For every £1 that Media Cymru awarded in grant funding, more than £15 in additional turnover was created by those businesses, compared to a non-Media Cymru funded company, and more than £10 in Gross Value Added. Exceeding average growth in the region, supported businesses have generated over £20m in additional annual export sales.
Against that backdrop, the wider Cardiff Capital Region media sector has grown 84% since 2017, over twice the rate of any other UK city, pushing Cardiff into the UK's top three cities for media production.
Professor Justin Lewis of Media Cymru said: “What’s most encouraging about this data isn't just the scale of it, but what it tells us about the model itself. We set out five years ago to test whether targeted R&D support could genuinely shift the trajectory of media businesses in Wales, not just top up their turnover for a year or two.”
The evidence now points to something more structural, that with the right ecosystem in place, businesses can build the kind of intellectual property and long-term capability that changes how competitive and innovation enabled they are.
“That’s the real measure of whether an innovation ecosystem is working, and it’s why PLAYBACK is showcasing something with the capacity to transform our creative sector.”
You can catch up on the main stage panels from Media Cymru's festival of media innovation, PLAYBACK, over on its YouTube channel.
Share this story
The School is a world-leading centre for media teaching and research.
