UK Government Scrap BFI Young Audiences Content Fund
In April 2019 a major new initiative was launched that would bolster the options available for those creating content for children in the UK – the BFI Young Audience Content Fund (BFI YACF).
The fund – supplied by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS) available for animated productions as well as live action, would fund productions aimed at audiences 18 or younger and would fund up to 100% of development work or up to 50% of production budgets provided the ideas were attached to a UK public service broadcaster. The £57 million pilot scheme addressed the well documented gap in funding that much children’s content faces here in the UK.
On paper the pilot was a clear success. In the first two years of operation, the BFI YACF was responsible for 144 development projects, 55 brand new television programmes, 212 hours of new, UK content that would not otherwise have been financed and delivered. When asked in 2021 if the fund was a success, MP John Whittingdale MP said that the fund would be
“… evaluated against the criteria set out at launch, including: quality; innovation; additionality; nations and regions; diversity; new voices; plurality and audience reach”.
So it would come as a surprise to many that such a successful fund having met these criteria. would be cut by the Government.
However, it would seem that the writing was on the wall for this initiative when around £10million worth of funding was already cut in 2021 as the fund entered it’s third year, leaving many confused at the Governments plans to effectively sabotage it’s own pilot and stopping approximately 20 additional potential projects from being green-lit. In spite of that, the work of the fund has continued until now.
The fund cut comes as the UK government comes under fire for its handling of the BBC, and it would appear that the fate of the BFI YACF has been linked here to the fate of the licence fee. Hidden away in her letter to the Director General and Chair of the BBC, Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries insisted that;
“I have decided not to top-slice the Licence Fee for the purpose of Contestable Funding. Over the course of the settlement period, this will return close to £100m back to general Licence Fee income.”
The ‘Contestable Funding’ here relates to the BFI YACF and the Audio Content Fund (ACF), and yet both the BFI YACF or the ACF pilot schemes were not funded directly by top slicing the licence fee as suggested above, they were funded from the DCMS. So it would seem that the future of the BFI YACF and the ACF would have been funded through the BBC licence fee, that is until Dorries decided against it.
Quentin Blake’s Clown
Successful animated work completed by the fund include Sol, Winnie and Wilbur, Circle Square, Milo, Sali Mali, Reset and Rewind, Quentin Blake’s Clown, Odo, Happy and Aardman’s forthcoming Lloyd of the Flies with many productions still in development such as the short A Bear Named Wojtek.
Circle Square (Milkshake!)
During the pandemic our culture has never been more important. Broadcasters have stepped up to ensure that educational programming has been expanded to service youngsters.
Speaking to the Guardian in 2021 when the first cuts were made Head of Fund Jackie Edwards underlined the importance of funding UK kids content, stating;
“People point to some of the bigger more successful historic shows – Teletubbies, Bob the Builder, Peppa Pig, None of those shows would get made if they were setting out today.”
The fund remains open for a short period, with the deadline for applications for production and development awards closing at 18:00 GMT, Friday 25 February 2022.
This casts a shadow over the already gloomy future of children’s media in the UK. The Global Screen Fund, devised to replace The Creative Europe Project Fund will provide only £7million a year to the UK creative sector. A pale comparison to the €111 million Creative Europe distributed from 2014 to 2020. With looming cuts at the BBC, sole or main partner UK productions excluded from participating in European pitching events such as Cartoon Media.
In terms of Government spending the amount spent on the BFI YACF was small especially considering the cultural value returned in programming for our young audiences as well as the jobs in the animation and live action sectors. This makes it seem like a cruel and unnecessary cut. Things seem rather desperate for the future of children’s content being made here in the UK.