ITV has created a \u00a3500,000 development fund targeted at the U.K. independent sector to help producers during the COVID-19 crisis, while the BBC has outlined its own package of measures to bolster the creative health of indies.<\/p>\n
The ITV fund is designed to accelerate the search for new ideas and content for the channel to play in the later part of 2020 and in 2021. Announcing the fund, ITV’s director of television, Kevin Lygo, said: \u201cITV’s success is based on the ideas that are brought to us by indies from across the U.K. and we don’t want that to stop.\u00a0 We have this money specifically available to ramp up development over the next few months so we can hit the ground running when current restrictions are lifted.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe commissioning teams are willing to increase the number of virtual meetings they have in order to build up an exciting slate over the next few months\u2014so if you have an idea for us, especially in the unscripted space, we are in a position to help fund that immediately.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want to reassure the indie community\u2014small or big, regional or London\u2014that ITV is very much open for business and we have the resource to invest in ideas for the channel.\u201d<\/p>\n
BBC Content, meanwhile, revealed a five-point plan to back the broadcasting industry at this difficult time. The measures announced will provide investment in purposeful activity and enable production companies to continue a pipeline of quality ideas and programs, in both the short and long term.<\/p>\n
The package of measures includes a company-centric approach to impacted productions, doubling investment in the small indie fund, supercharging development, expanding BBC Three creative partnerships and investment in archive rights.<\/p>\n
Bal Samra, BBC group commercial director, said: \u201cThis is an unprecedented event, which is causing massive disruption in the market, for broadcasters, production companies, talent and freelancers. It\u2019s at times like these that the creative industries need to pull together\u2014to make sure the sector we return to at the end of the pandemic is as rich and vibrant as the one we have now. The BBC will contribute to that across the breadth of our output on TV, radio, children\u2019s and nations and regions.\u201d<\/p>\n
Charlotte Moore, director of content, added: \u201cWe recognize this is an incredibly challenging time for all of those working in the creative industry and especially the smaller independent production companies. We want to do what we can to keep creativity focused and thriving so that we can continue to\u00a0bring audiences the high-quality content that they expect. These measures demonstrate our long term commitment to sustaining\u00a0the creative health of the industry, right across the U.K.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
ITV has created a \u00a3500,000 development fund targeted at the U.K. independent sector to help producers during the COVID-19 crisis, while the BBC has outlined its own package of measures to bolster the creative health of indies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":350,"featured_media":10153,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[170,146],"class_list":["post-10152","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-top-stories","tag-bbc","tag-itv"],"yoast_head":"\n