Culture, as the government keeps telling us, is big business. The contribution that universities and art colleges make has many strands: the provision of trained personnel for music, design and film-making is only one aspect. Equally important are the ideas and concepts they generate. It has been notoriously difficult, however, to pin down their worth to the economy.
But this is changing. Data is being collected at a considerable pace and new ways of analysing them are being developed. The following pages provide an insight into how a few of the culture industries are faring as they enter the new millennium.