Young Audiences Content Fund Opens Call

The BFI-administered Young Audiences Content Fund (YACF) has issued a call to production companies and producers to pitch their ideas to secure funding.

The YACF is looking for projects that fulfill its criteria of reflecting the lives of children and young people in the U.K., screening on free-to-air, public-service broadcasting channels. The YACF is currently in year three of its three-year pilot, set up to address a deficit of new distinctive children’s content that inspires and reflects the lives of young people in the U.K.

Projects the fund has backed so far during its pilot include Milkshake!’s Go Green With The Grimwades and Mimi’s World, CITV’s HOW and Don’t Unleash The Beast, Channel 4’s Quentin Blake’s Clown, E4’s Teen First Dates, Letters In Lockdown and Rap Therapy and Indigenous language content such as SOL.

Jackie Edwards, head of the fund, said: “We’re still accepting submissions for funding through the Young Audiences Content Fund and continue our drive to support projects that connect with young audiences in the U.K. in a manner that has declined in recent years. We have seen the impact of this decline as the engagement of young audiences with public service content has reduced in recent years, but the fund-backed projects illustrate that when high-quality, representative shows are made, young audiences will watch. The Fund exists for all producers across the television sector, no matter the size of the production company, location or prior experience in children’s programming, so long as the idea is a great one and meets our criteria.”