Eiken faces a new stage as a cluster of digital content creators and distributors

The cluster has decided to adapt its model to the new digital reality and open itself to innovative and hybrid proposals. Aletxu Echeverría, CEO of The Blackout Project, will pilot this new stage as president of the cluster.

The Extraordinary Assembly held last Thursday brought together the representatives of the associated companies of EIKEN, the Audiovisual and Digital Content Cluster of Euskadi, who have elected with practically unanimous support the new Board of Directors that will lead the process of change. In its more than 12 years of life, Eiken has managed to generate an industrial sector dynamic in the Basque audiovisual sector, introducing discourses and criteria of business management and sectoral competitiveness where less than a decade ago other types of approaches prevailed. Adopting a position as an active and collaborative partner, it has been able to permanently generate new initiatives and maintain those that have been most successful. Always following the approaches of cooperation between competitors and public-private collaboration.

The situation in the sector has evolved a lot since Eiken began its journey. The audiovisual environment is immersed in a transformation process that has created new opportunities in the creation and distribution of content. For this reason, the cluster has decided to refound itself and transform itself into an organization that serves as an umbrella for companies in the digital content industry of Euskadi, bringing together different companies from the Basque Digital Ecosystem.

In this way, this strategic sector for Euskadi is reinforced, which will allow the interests of the Metasector of digital content to be united and have a clear dialogue; promote cooperation dynamics between companies from diverse sectors; support the development of creative industries and strengthen Eiken through greater size and representation, in addition to offering greater opportunities to the organizations that make it up.

Eiken has decided to expand its scope of action by incorporating more partners into the cluster, among which are new Audiovisual Production companies; new partners with Support Activities; Service and Technology Provider partners; and companies from other sectors such as Marketing and Advertising, Transmedia Communication, Language Industries, Internet Players, Events, Music and other Creative Industries. In total, thanks to these incorporations, Eiken is currently made up of 125 partners, who have a turnover of 686 million euros and employ 5,282 people.

A new stage

Juan Mari Gurrutxaga leaves the presidency after 8 years at the helm of Eiken with an assessment in which he highlighted the importance of collaboration between competitors, which is the reason for a cluster association. For his part, during his speech Aletxu Echevarria, in addition to thanking the outgoing president for his dedication and commitment to the sector through the cluster, highlighted “the need to advance in the construction of an industry that must adapt to the new content consumption habits, which with digitalization and multi-screen access have drastically changed the way of creating content, distributing it and also - he concluded - the way of monetizing it.”

The Board of Directors, as Aletxu Echevarría has pointed out, is a clear exponent of this change that must be led, by including in it leading representatives of both Audiovisual and Multimedia such as EiTB, Euskaltel, Pausoka, Irusoin, The Blakcout Project or Mixer; of Advertising, with Dimension and Trupp; of Music, with Last Tour at the forefront; of the Language Industries, with Elhuyar and MaraMara; or the more specific Digital Contents, with the presence on this new Educaedu Board. In addition to the representative of the Basque Government and SPRI, Alberto Méndez, the Board is completed by the two technological platforms of the Country, IK4 and Tecnalia; with Digipen, the video game University; and with the presidents of EPE/APV, Association of Independent Producers and Karraskan, Association of Cultural Innovation companies.

Aletxu Echevarría becomes president of this renewed EIKEN at a time when, as has been highlighted, the sector is experiencing, at the end of the 2015 financial year, an improvement of 6 percentage points in billing volume, compared to the previous year. Some positive data, which are also the first increases in recent years, although still far from the pre-crisis figures.

Regarding the forecasts for the first half of 2016, the companies that make up the Audiovisual and Digital Content Cluster hope to maintain this upward trend in both billing and employment. As encouraging data, the fact that the end of 2015 shows a double-digit increase in employment, 21%, has been highlighted. However, to adequately assess this data, it must be taken into account that in recent years companies have greatly reduced their structures to adapt to the complex economic situation.