Young Audiences Content Fund Faces Reduced Budget

The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) is planning to cut 25 percent of the budget for the Young Audiences Content Fund (YACF), a move the Children’s Media Foundation argues “shows scant regard for the vital role it has played in rejuvenating the children’s production sector.”

DCMS plans to reduce the overall grant to the Fund from £57 million ($80 million) to £44 million ($62 million). The Children’s Media Foundation said this will come “as a huge disappointment to the children’s production community and is a major disservice to the children of Britain.”

The Foundation, along with industry organizations such as Pact and Animation UK, have campaigned to achieve additional funding for the children’s and youth sector. The money originally set aside for the fund was originally reserved for broadband rollout, “but when the commitment to a £57 million fund was first announced, no mention was made of clawing any of it back before the project was completed,” the CMF said. “Now the government are damaging their own pilot scheme, just when it is showing results.”

Anna Home, chair of the Children’s Media Foundation, said: “The 25 percent reduction seems petty-minded and illogical. Cutting back something perceived to be a potential success before the completion of the pilot makes no sense.”

The CMF is calling on the government to extend the life of the YAC Fund to a fourth year and reinstate its full funding.

In the longer term, the CMF believes the DCMS and Ofcom should “learn lessons from the success of the YAC Fund. When Ofcom reports to the government on the future of our public service media framework in July, there should be specific recommendations to government that detail how a new body will fulfill that important function, with increased funding that uses a more innovative, self-sustaining financing model. Continuing the Fund will also provide the basic structure for more radical approaches to competitive public service content going forward—potentially on new platforms and in new genres such as social and interactive media.”

CMF has invited the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport to attend the Children’s Media Conference in July to join the CMF debate on the future of public service content for young people.