The Broadcasting Authority of Ireland (BAI) has announced its budget for production funding in 2013 will be €13m in total, €1m less than 2012.
The missing million will instead be used to fund a new Broadcast Archiving Scheme, which will offer broadcasters funding to archive their back catalogues.
The authority announced it will operate three separate open rounds of its Sound and Vision II Scheme throughout 2013, instead of the four rounds it operated in 2012.
A total budget of €10.5m has been set for the three production funding rounds – €3.5m per round.
The new Archiving Scheme will have a budget of €2.8m. This new scheme was approved back in February 2012.
The authority offered a total of €14m in funding across its four Sound & Vision Schemes in 2012. IFTN can reveal the BAI received no profit share issues in 2011/2012.
A spokesperson for the BAI however said there was still a possibility that productions funded in these years could return profits in the future.
Projects which received BAI funding in its Sound & Vision Scheme in 2011 include Wildfire Films’ ‘Crisis Eile’, which will return to TG4 later this year, and ‘The Irish of 9/11’, which aired on TV3 earlier this year and earned an IFTA nomination for Best Documentary.
Speaking after a BAI meeting held on Monday November 12, chief executive of the BAI, Michael O’Keeffe said: “The proposed round structure for 2013 has been developed at this time to provide clarity to broadcasters and the independent production sector on the operation of the Scheme next year. The structure has also been designed with a view to facilitating the introduction of the new Archiving Scheme. We look forward to engaging with the industry on this new scheme in the coming months.”
Further information regarding to the Archiving Scheme and details of the application process will be announced by the BAI before the end of 2012.
