Mark Murphy - ETV Media Group

This month Mark Murphy celebrated the 10th Anniversary of the launch of ETV Media Group. Founded in 2000 by Murphy and his business partners Mark Cullen and Adrian Swift, ETV has grown to become the UK’s leading independent digital media company.

What ETV does is simple yet revolutionary at the same time. In a nutshell, Murphy and his team create value for brands and broadcasters in a world where old media models are becoming obsolete.

“ETV has thrived on the chaos of a changing advertising and marketing market,” explains Murphy.

“In the past, a great deal of money went on television spot advertising - around £4bn a year, with another £2bn going on outdoor advertising. Then the internet and digital transmission happened and we were there at the time money was leaking out of traditional channels into other forms of digital marketing. And it’s gone pretty well. We celebrated a decade of growth on the 13th of January.”

Murphy is a television man through and through. He spent much of his previous career back home in Australia working for Channel Nine before coming to the UK and running the Mirror Group’s television projects. After a failed attempt to buy the cable TV arm of Mirror Group, Murphy knew he wanted to work for himself again so came up with ETV.

After setting up the first of two production centres in south London at the turn of the new millennium, it was not long before Murphy came up against his make or break moment. Or as Murphy puts it, “s**t or bust”.

“Oh yeah, that came at the end of our first year,” Murphy says. “We were part funded by an internet incubator and that went from having $100m to nothing when the dotcom bubble burst. Unfortunately for us that was just before we were due to receive our second tranche of funds. But we got lucky and found some great people at WestLB Panmure and since then it’s been fine.”

Since those early days ETV has grown into a five divisions business. ETV Productions is the first of the business arms. It is an independent production company that makes stylish, populist, factual entertainment programmes for the likes of Sky Real Lives.

Next on the list is ETV Online, a next generation integrated digital agency, combining the best in digital interactivity and engaging video. ETV Branded Content works with brands to create great TV that works across all platforms. ETV Interactive specialises in creating and producing strong entertainment formats that drive viewer participation and, finally, ETV Technology delivers content in every possible flavour, from multi-format media files all the way to High Definition television, and everything in between.

So from humble beginnings Murphy and his 80-strong team have created something businesses and programme makers alike have taken a shine to. Revenues of £7m a year show just how successful ETV has become.

But what of the future? Well there’s a great deal happening already, so early into 2010. ETV recently launched offices in Australia and plans to replicate its successful UK model in Murphy’s back yard.

Murphy believes everything ETV does should be geared to the global market.

“We need to go into every programme we make with an international focus. That’s why we are opening an international office. As part of that, we want to talk to smaller UK indies about representing them on the wider international landscape.”

But it’s not the first time ETV has enjoyed international exposure.

“We made a series for Sky Real Lives called Fat Pets, Fat Owners that Outright Distribution sold to four territories,” says Murphy. “There are now talks ongoing in America about the format. We also produced a concert film for Spandau Ballet and will gap-fund the second part of that, taking on its distribution.”

As for the state of the general economy, Murphy believes the market has merely returned to its normal state and was somewhat overblown for longer than anyone expected.

“We’re actually at a more sustainable level now,” he says. “Would have done better without the recession but we’ve done really well nevertheless. We’ve seen a lot more activity since the autumn and gained around fifteen new clients. It seems people are putting their toes back in the water.”