BCI funds for radio and TV programme makers halved

FUNDING FOR makers of radio and television programmes awarded by the Broadcasting Commission of Ireland (BCI) will be half what it was in previous years, from this year.

The BCI awarded €21 million in 2007 to make 457 radio and television programmes as part of the its "Sound and Vision" scheme. However, this level of funding was caused by a backlog from when the scheme was first set up. This year and next about €10 million will be available for broadcasting projects under the scheme.

"The bigger impact will be on the television side because it costs more money and had been getting a more significant proportion than the radio," chief executive of the BCI, Michael O'Keeffe, said yesterday as the scheme's annual report for 2007 was launched.

Of the funding awarded in 2007, €18.9 million was for 100 television projects with €2.8 million going to 205 radio projects.

Kingswas one of four feature films supported by the BCI in 2007. Colm Meaney starred in the bilingual film about Irish emigrants, which was Ireland's official foreign film entry for the Academy Awards. This film is the type of project that would not have been made without BCI funding, Mr O'Keeffe said.

In the latest round of 2008 radio funding announced yesterday, €1.1 million was allocated to 91 radio projects, the majority of which were documentaries (74 per cent). Of these, 15 were projects for broadcast on RTÉ and 13 to be aired on Newstalk.

However, the biggest tranche of funds went to projects for the community radio sector, which received 42 per cent of the funding.

Some of the programmes that received backing include documentaries on wreck diving in Ireland, the evolution of the pub and the story of one youth worker's creative methods of keeping children away from drugs.

Qualifying programmes must have themes of Irish culture, heritage or experience, or adult literacy. Mr O'Keeffe said that for commercial radio, these programmes had to go out at peak times, even though this was not necessarily mainstream programming.

"A huge number in the current radio round are independent producers" he explained. "We have a newly developed radio production sector which didn't exist before Sound and Vision."

The scheme, which is funded using 5 per cent of the licence fee, is approved by the European Commission until 2009. The BCI will report to the Minister for Communications on the effectiveness of the scheme this autumn. "We are hoping that the Minister and the EC will endorse the continuation of the scheme," he added.