Bernard Ginns: Exporters should get with the programme and look to ITV

Aged between 60 and 90 and wearing wide-brimmed sun hats and big sunglasses, they are gently put through their paces by their Russian instructor, a beautiful former rhythmic gymnast in her late 20s.

These wives of wealthy businessmen have come to settle in sun-kissed Calabasas from all over the world.

But wherever they hail from, whether it is Israel or Iran, they have one thing in common – they all love British-made TV dramas.

This demographic group settles down every evening between 6pm-8pm to watch the latest episode of their favourite series.

We all know that ITV’s Downton Abbey has been a huge success in the States. But other less starry shows are also finding big audiences in places like Calabasas (according to my dear expat aunt).

These include Last Tango in Halifax, the romantic comedy about two widowed pensioners written by Yorkshire-born TV writer playwright Sally Wainwright, crime drama DCI Banks, which was filmed at locations throughout West Yorkshire, and Doc Martin, starring Martin Clunes as the grumpy West Country doctor.

It is not just British-made series that are selling in the world’s biggest market.

Hilary Mantel is going down a storm among the Calabasas water aerobics crowd, a representative sample of wealthy America consumers who love the double-Booker Prize winner’s historical novels.

These are the unsung export stories of our time.

I hear a lot about efforts to encourage manufacturers to look overseas to new markets, but judging from the trade figures they have had little major success to date.

Perhaps our factory managers could study the likes of commercial broadcaster ITV, which under former Asda chief Archie Norman has rebalanced its business model by investing in making products that international audiences – like those in Calabasas – want to buy.

• First it was the wrong type of leaves. Then came the wrong sort of snow.

Now, we have the wrong sort of factories, according to experts at Capital Economics.

In a special report for the Yorkshire Post, the leading City consultancy said the region is restructuring, but not by enough to allow it to outperform the UK in the years ahead.

Capital said Yorkshire’s manufacturing sector has seen job losses, despite employment growth in some other regions.

It said there has been “a past failure to shift the region’s industrial structure, from which it is now suffering”.

Capital, which is headed by influential economist Roger Bootle, forecasts that Yorkshire’s manufacturing workforce will shrink from 265,000 in 2013 to 231,000 in 2020, a loss of 34,000 jobs in seven years.

Richard Holt, regional economist, said manufacturing is more important to Yorkshire’s economy than it is to the UK as a whole.

The region’s industrial base is over-represented by food, textiles and clothing, paper and wood, coal-based products, chemicals, building products and steel, he added. “Unfortunately, most of these have suffered particularly bad output falls at the UK level,” said Mr Holt. “The chances are that much the same has been true in Yorkshire.

“Meanwhile, the part of manufacturing that has done best across the UK – transport equipment, which mainly means automotives and aerospace – is sparsely represented in Yorkshire.”

This sector has been flying, reporting a 7.3 per cent year on year rise in output.

Mr Holt said: “Just as the trains can be blighted by the ‘wrong sort of snow’, so regional economies can suffer, or at any rate fail to achieve their full potential, from ‘the wrong sort of manufacturing’.”

So, there we have it, Yorkshire’s factories are in the wrong sector.

That might be counter-intuitive to the experience of many of our region’s finest manufacturers, but Capital seems to have struck a chord.

The consultancy is not overly optimistic about the “very important” digital, communications and media sector either, describing it is as “rather weak” in Yorkshire.

Capital goes on to predict that the professional services and support sectors will be responsible for driving the majority of jobs growth over the rest of the decade, replicating the pattern already in place.

That’s fine, but professional services and support sectors need to have industries to sell to and the fear has to be that the wealth generating part of Yorkshire’s economy is dwindling.

@bernardginns