BAB Executive Director Emanuel Adam Delivers Speech to International Academy of Television Arts & Sciences
The following speech was delivered at the Palace of Westminster on Thursday 14 March, to attendees at the International Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Board Meeting welcoming event
Ladies and Gentleman, honourable members of the House, it is a pleasure and a privilege for me to be here tonight and say a few words.
On behalf of our CEO, Duncan Edwards, our great team in the UK and most importantly, our community of friends and colleagues, who are all part of the transatlantic, global community that we are proud to represent, a warm welcome to you all to London and the UK.
Much like the Academy, we at BritishAmerican Business have a straight forward mission. With our roots in the American Chamber of Commerce in the UK and the British-American Chamber of Commerce in the US, we work to champion and highlight what is one of the most important economic corridors on Earth – the trade and investment relationship between the US and the UK.
We are a business network. We bring people together, like for tomorrow’s meeting, and we advocate for policies with Governments that help to grow this relationship further.
The roots of the companies we work with are all be different; they produce medicines, build your car, insure your product, design your website, find your talent, produce or distribute content, and they all have something in common: They, like us, are committed to the transatlantic relationship; and here this means in particular global, and American businesses growing and investing in the UK.
And they do so for good reason: As you can tell these days, the UK is a world leader in keeping us entertained, and of course, making headlines.
In fact, I heard from colleagues in the US, Germany and even Japan who reported seeing the live coverage of this week’s Parliamentary votes on Television. This is an achievement, isn’t it? Not sure you need much else.
We will get our fair share of Brexit tomorrow; but this is not what we should be focussing on tonight.
What we should focus on is that the UK is the most important destination for global FDI in Europe. That this FDI comes, if I am not mistaken, from almost all regions of the world represented here, with the US alone responsible for creating 514 new projects last year supporting or creating 26,570 jobs and that in 2017-18, 121 FDI projects were in creative and media alone, creating 2,354 new jobs for people in Britain
The latter, again, for good reason: The UK is the biggest European broadcasting hub, with approx. 150 companies transmitting 7,582 channels into the EU; The UK is a global leader when it comes to broadcasting and TV/film production; British TV Productions are known throughout the world, including uniquely successful formats such as ‘Downton Abbey’, ‘Planet Earth 2’, ‘The Great British Bake-off’, ‘Sherlock’ and even ‘Love Island’; These shows have been sold to over 200 territories, with Sherlock, for example, being seen by 17 million viewers in China alone; And as hopefully many of us know, this country produces damn good talent. Almost too good, my American friends would say.
So to conclude, my message tonight, you are right to be here today. Again, a very warm welcome.