Culture Secretary Further Extends £500m Film & TV Production Restart Scheme

This fund is designed to help film and television production companies that are unable to obtain coronavirus insurance recommence their activities.

The Culture Secretary, Nadine Dorries, has announced a six month extension to the UK-wide Film and TV Restart Scheme to enable approximately 400 additional productions to benefit from its support. The £500 million programme opened last year and has already supported 835 productions working across the UK, protecting over 70,000 jobs and £2.3 billion of production spend.

The scheme aims to help to get TV and film productions that were halted or delayed by a lack of insurance back up and running. The intention is to give productions the confidence that they will be supported if future losses are incurred due to coronavirus (COVID-19).

The latest extension, which means the scheme now remains open for applications until next spring, will provide cover for claims up to 30 June 2022. This is expected to support an additional six months of film and TV production in the UK, protecting around 34,500 jobs and £1.2 billion of production spend.

Eligible productions will receive compensation for costs caused by coronavirus delays up to a value of 20% of the production budget, with abandonment of productions due to coronavirus to be covered up to 70% of the production budget. There will be a total cap of £5 million on claims per production.

The funding is available to all UK film and television productions made by companies where at least half of the production budget is spent in the UK and is estimated to cover more than 70% of the film and TV production market.

This scheme will now remain open for applications until 30 April 2022.

(This report was the subject of a GRANTfinder Newsflash.)