The findings showed that the EU market was next most important market after the UK and provided growth opportunities for 55 percent of media small and medium-sized enterprises. The next was North America, and Japan, East Asia and the Pacific.
The percentage of media-related small- and medium-sized enterprises who looked at the EU to grow was more than other professional service sectors like Law and Accounting, and twice higher than the SMEs of Financial Services, and Finance and Accounting.
When asked about the possibilities for their companies in light of the UK leaving the EU only 40% gave one option or two, whereas just 15 per cent of respondents offered three or more options.
However media companies were the most likely of the 15 industries polled to expect the possibility of a decline over the coming three months. That was the case for 16 percent of respondents, with more than a third said they’d struggle to make it through.
The Brexit decision appears to have been a major impact on confidence levels. the proportion of SMEs in this industry that expected growth over the coming three months dropped significantly from 50% in Q2 to just 34 per percentage in Q3 – a decrease of 16 percent. In addition, the proportion of people who predicted decline during the same time was slightly higher. Since the election has taken place, confidence levels have slowly improved to a comparable level as they were the previous year, but not quite to the levels that were prior to the vote.
Gavin Wraith-Carter, the Managing Director Gavin Wraith-Carter, Managing Director at Hitachi Capital Business Finance comments: “It is clear from these numbers and anecdotally, that media industry is less confident regarding the Brexit decision than other sectors. It is also encouraging to note the proportion of people who anticipate growth since, despite a significant drop by 16 percent right following 23 June. It has significantly increased 11 percent with a hefty number of media organisations preparing themselves for significant growth throughout April .”
