The Landing reopens tender for content production arm

Sumners, together with Mediasmiths and iBurbia Studios, was appointed by Salford City Council in September to help run the small-to- medium-enterprise incubator.

But at the end of last year, Sumners announced a round of redundancies and plans to vacate its city centre base.

“We are now trading under a different name, Sumners Media City Ltd,” managing director Andy Sumner told Broadcast.

“There is a structured wind-down of Andrew Sumner and Associates, which was awarded the contract at The Landing, so the process had to be reopened. We will throw our hat in the ring again.”

Media technology consultancy Mediasmiths is now the only one of three original anchor tenants still associated with The Landing.

iBurbia, which was appointed to run the interactive media and games labs, pulled out of the venture in November because it felt MediaCityUK site operator Peel Media had failed to provide it with access to key TV platforms.

Several post firms in the region told Broadcast that The Landing chief executive Jon Corner had contacted them to drum up interest in the content production arm, with tenders for both positions - the content production hub and the interactive media and games labs - advertised last week.

The initial contracts for both vacancies are for three years, with potential for extensions of up to two years.

The Landing is backed by £10.6m from the European Regional Development Fund and Northwest Development Agency. Salford City Council has also pledged £3.6m.