Publishing in the Knowledge Economy - DTI Home Page

The industry today
Publishing in the knowledge economy
scale in consumer publishing, along the lines of
Germany’s Bertelsmann. But it has been able to
produce companies in the field of academic,
educational and business publishing that are
world leaders, such as Reed Elsevier and
Pearson.
Reuters is also a truly global player, both in its
traditional news agency role and in its much
larger financial intermediation businesses, as
well as its business information ventures. In its
innovative conjoining of technology and content,
and its development of new skills in information
handling, it may prefigure much of the future of
other parts of the publishing industry.
1.1.2 Social, political and cultural issues
Publishing is not simply a business. Its products
are hugely influential in the education system
and the social, cultural and political life of the
UK. This is reflected in the difficult decisions that
face governments and regulators in relation to
taxation, concentration of ownership, regulation
of the nature of published content (privacy,
obscenity, libel), and the degree to which
publishers are allowed to make use of personal
data. This latter point is particularly important in
being able to tailor products and services to the
user, and also in the continued availability of
some products such as directories. Digital
technologies also pose important challenges to
the existing copyright regime. There is a need to
reconcile the necessary reward to the creators
of knowledge and entertainment with the need
for society to have access to these products in
ways that are not over restrictive or that exclude
whole sections of society.
The increasing importance of the knowledge
economy is a major source of demand for the
products and services of the publishing industry,
and a source of supply for academic, STM and
business publishing.
Changes in the behaviour of consumers pose
particular challenges to the publishing industry.
The consumer appears to be devoting more
money, but less time, to many of the existing
products of the publishing industry, as media
and entertainment choices proliferate.
Demographic change in the form of an ageing
population may favour some products in the
short term, but in the longer term may pose
a threat to reading as a leisure pursuit.
The shifting pattern of shopping activity also
poses problems for the distribution of physical
newspapers and magazines, potentially
weakening newspaper buying further and
narrowing the range of magazines on offer.
1.2 How big is the UK publishing
industry?
Because of the shifting boundaries of the
industry, it is not straightforward to answer
this question. There are, in fact, a number of
different answers, based on the definitions
used in official statistics and unofficial ones.
This problem will be discussed in more detail
in Part 2 of the report. This section will confine
itself to a brief overview and some illustrative
comparisons.
According to the official Standard Industrial
Classification, publishing activity is covered by
SIC 22.1 and total turnover for that classification
for the latest available year, 2000, is £18.37bn.
This appears to understate some of the faster
growing areas of the industry, particularly
magazines, and excludes activities such as
exhibitions and conferences, databases, news
agencies and ‘advertising-related activities’ by
placing them elsewhere in the SIC.
The DCMS report Mapping the Creative
Industries produced a size for the industry of
about £18.5bn in 1999. Taking some unofficial
data for net revenues for newspapers and
conventional consumer magazines and sales of
books and adding in revenues from customer
magazines and business to business activities
(drawn from the special study Connecting
Business) gives a total turnover of just over
£22bn in 2000.
It would be fair to say that the datasets for
which there are time series all record a picture
of healthy growth. Series covering particular
sectors will be examined in Part 2.
Comparing the smallest of the turnover
estimates of £18.37bn with other UK >
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