A guide to the Patent Box and how to qualify
Learn if your business qualifies for Patent Box relief and how you can claim it.
Media, content and marketing accountants and advisers
Specialist accounting, tax, audit and advisory support for media, marketing, content, and influencer-led businesses, and the intellectual property and brands behind them.
Price Bailey provides accounting, tax, audit and corporate finance services to media, marketing, and content businesses, including agencies, rights holders, and content creators. We support clients with the accounting challenges specific to the sector, including royalty and rights income, multiple and often irregular revenue streams, international work, and the tax reliefs available to creative and IP-holding businesses, alongside audit, corporate finance, and exit planning.
Accounting, tax and advisory support for media businesses
The UK’s media and content industry continues to grow at pace. Our specialist team works with businesses across the sector to help them reach their goals. We have advised media businesses ranging in value from under £10m to over £100m on growth, raising finance, acquisitions, and sale.
Media, marketing, and content businesses rarely generate income in a single, predictable way. For example, an agency may bill on retainer, commission, and project fees at once, while a rights holder’s income may depend on licensing arrangements that pay out over years, in multiple jurisdictions, under different tax treatments. Meanwhile, a content business may combine sponsorship, platform revenue, and brand partnerships within the same set of accounts.
We support media businesses to overcome this complexity: recognising and reporting income accurately across different revenue types, managing VAT and international tax on cross-border work, structuring intellectual property and rights ownership, and preparing businesses for funding, investment, or a future sale.
If you run a production company, venue, or sports organisation, our sports and entertainment team can help instead. This page covers the commercial and intellectual property side of media, marketing, and content, not the sporting or venue side of a business.
We act for nearly 100 media and creative sector clients. Speak to our media team today to find out more about how we can help.
Who we support across the media sector
- Media businesses: Publishers, broadcasters, and content businesses managing multiple revenue streams and rights arrangements.
- Agencies: Marketing and creative agencies billing across retainer, commission, and project fee models.
- Intellectual property rights: Businesses and individuals holding, licensing, or exploiting IP, royalties, and rights income, including structuring and valuation.
- Influencers and content creators: Support for brand deals, platform income, sponsorship, and the tax and structuring decisions that come with a growing personal brand.
Helping media businesses grow
Growth in media and content businesses doesn’t come from continuing to do the same thing day after day. Client demand is shifting towards faster turnaround, a more personalised output, and tighter budgets. So the businesses that grow well are usually those that have streamlined their operations, on top of how much they bill.
This means a business’ accounting function becomes more important as it scales, but also hard to maintain informally. Clear management information, accurate cash flow forecasting, and revenue reporting must all hold up across multiple income streams, and Price Bailey can help media businesses to do this. Our services include:
- Management accounts: Giving an accurate, current view of performance across multiple income streams.
- Cash flow forecasting: Particularly where income is irregular or paid in arrears, as is common with royalties and rights income.
- VAT and tax planning: Including the specific VAT treatment that applies to different types of media income.
- Payroll and contractor support: Reflecting how media businesses often combine employed staff, contractors, and personal service companies.
- Royalty and rights income reporting: Ensuring income is recognised and reported accurately as it is earned.
- International tax: For businesses and individuals earning income across more than one jurisdiction.
- Funding and investment readiness: Preparing financial information that stands up to investor scrutiny.
- Valuations and exit planning: When the time comes to raise investment or sell.
Managing complex media income
Media and content businesses typically manage several distinct income types within the same set of accounts, each with its own accounting treatment, VAT position, and reporting requirement.
| Income type | Common Issue | How we help |
| Royalties | Income timing rarely matches when it is earned |
Accurate recognition and forecasting as it accrues |
| Sponsorship income | Deliverables span more than one period | Recognition matched to contract obligations |
| Advertising revenue | Agency, platform and direct models all differ |
Consistent treatment across revenue sources |
| Brand partnerships | Cash, product and service value combined | Valuing and reporting non-cash elements correctly |
| Retainers | Scope and hours often drift from the contract | Management reporting that flags margin erosion early |
| Rights exploitation | Licensing income spans years and jurisdictions | Structuring and reporting across the licence term |
| International revenue | Different tax treatment by territory | International tax and reporting support |
| VAT and withholding tax | Treatment varies by income type and country | Getting the VAT and withholding position right |
Getting this treatment right matters beyond compliance. Investors, buyers, and lenders all expect income to be recognised consistently and explainably, and inconsistent treatment across different revenue types is a common source of difficulty during funding rounds or a sale process.
Intellectual property, rights and royalties
Intellectual property is often a media business’s most valuable asset, and how it is owned, structured, and taxed has consequences well beyond the accounts. A brand, for example, may be held in a separate company from the operating business that trades under it, and that structure affects tax planning, valuation, and what a buyer is actually acquiring in a sale.
We advise on:
- IP ownership: Including where IP should sit within a group structure.
- Rights income and royalty reporting: Ensuring income is recognised accurately as it is earned or licensed.
- Licensing income: Including cross-border licensing arrangements.
- Valuations: Where IP or rights form part of a funding round, sale, or dispute.
- Tax planning: Including the reliefs available to creative and IP-holding businesses.
- Structuring IP within groups: Particularly where a business operates across more than one entity or jurisdiction.
Support for influencers and creator-led businesses
Influencers and content creators face a specific combination of accounting and tax issues: brand deal and sponsorship income, platform revenue, gifts and benefits in kind, and the question of whether and when to operate through a limited company.
We provide support with personal tax, limited company structuring, VAT, and international income, where platform or brand income is earned outside the UK.
Guidance in going international
Media income increasingly crosses borders, whether through licensing, distribution, or overseas client and platform work, and each of those brings its own tax and reporting requirements.
We support:
- Overseas income, and how it should be recognised and taxed.
- Withholding tax, on royalty, licensing, and rights income paid from overseas.
- International VAT, on cross-border media supplies.
- Transfer pricing, between group entities operating in different jurisdictions.
- Overseas entities, including when and how to establish one.
- Global payroll, for businesses employing or contracting internationally.
- Cross-border contracts, and the tax implications built into them.
- International market development, as businesses expand into new territories.
Preparing media businesses for funding, acquisition or exit
Media businesses are increasingly attracting investment and acquisition interest, and preparation for that process typically needs to start well before a deal is on the table.
We support forecasting and management information built for investor or buyer scrutiny, valuations, due diligence, shareholder planning, mergers and acquisitions, and the process of selling a media business, alongside founder tax planning ahead of a transaction.
Speak to our media specialists.
Why choose Price Bailey for media accounting
We provide:
- Sector-specific accounting and tax support, built around how media, marketing, and content businesses actually generate income.
- Broad sector experience, across agencies, rights holders, and content businesses.
- Partner-led advice, throughout.
- Corporate finance and valuation capability, supporting funding, M&A, and exit.
- International tax support, for businesses and individuals earning income across borders.
- Experience across owner-managed, scaling, and exit-stage businesses, from a single-founder content business through to established agencies and rights holders.
Media accounting frequently asked questions
Do media businesses need specialist accountants?
Media businesses typically manage several income types at once, royalties, sponsorship, retainers, and rights income among them, each with its own accounting and VAT treatment. A specialist accountant who understands how those income types interact reduces the risk of inconsistent reporting and helps the business present accurately to investors, lenders, and buyers.
How are royalties and intellectual property income taxed?
Treatment depends on the nature of the IP, how it is licensed or exploited, and whether income is earned in the UK or overseas. Royalty and licensing income paid from overseas can also be subject to withholding tax, which needs to be considered alongside UK tax treatment.
Can Price Bailey support influencers and content creators?
Yes. We advise influencers and content creators on brand deal and platform income, whether to operate through a limited company, VAT, and the tax treatment of gifts and benefits received in connection with their work.
What accounting support do media agencies need?
Agencies typically bill across retainer, commission, and project fee models within the same set of accounts, which needs consistent revenue recognition alongside the management accounting and cash flow forecasting any growing business needs.
Can Price Bailey help media businesses prepare for investment or sale?
Yes. We support forecasting, management information, valuations, due diligence, and founder tax planning ahead of a funding round, acquisition, or sale.
Speak to our media team
Media, marketing, and content businesses generate income in ways that a generalist accountant does not always anticipate, royalties, rights, sponsorship, and international income all sitting within the same set of accounts.
Use the button below to get in touch, and we will arrange a conversation with the right specialist for your business.
We can help
Contact us today to find out more about how we can help you
Read our insights here
Creative industry tax reliefs
HMRC’s latest statistics reveal record support for the UK’s creative industries, with significant growth in film, video games and new expenditure credits. We examine ten key findings and what the changing relief landscape means for creative businesses.
R&D tax credit calculator
Our R&D tax credit calculator helps you to estimate what R&D tax credits could be worth to your business. The information is based on the R&D tax credit rates as of 1 April 2024
Valuing a technology company for fundraising
How is a technology company valued for fundraising? Price Bailey's Chand Chudasama sets out the ten factors investors weigh before backing your raise.