Kickstart Film And Television Production

Kickstart Film And Television Production

At the end of July, the government announced the introduction of a new £500 million scheme to kickstart a film and the television production. The Film and TV Production Restart Scheme has now been launched and will help UK film and TV productions struggling to secure insurance for COVID-19 related costs. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/gad-helps-uk-film-and-tv-productions

This scheme will help TV and film productions that have been halted or delayed by a lack of the insurance to get back up and running by giving productions the confidence they need that they will be supported if future losses are incurred due to Covid-19.

As per the initial announcement, future claims made under the Scheme can be backdated to 28 July 2020. The Scheme will be available to both pre-existing eligible the productions and to new eligible productions.

The funding will be available to all qualifying the productions made by the companies where at least 50% of the production budget is spent in the UK. There will be a fee to participate in the scheme and a limit to the maximum claim allowable.

The commencement of the scheme is conditional upon the European Commission providing State Aid approval. The scheme rules are also subject to change. 

The Government Actuary’s Department (GAD) helped to deliver a project which provides £500m to the UK film and TV productions adversely affected by COVID-19. The Film and TV Production Restart Scheme were set up with the help of modelling and actuarial expertise provided by GAD.

TV and film industries had stopped work during the lockdown. However, once that was the lifted it became apparent there was incomplete insurance cover available and this meant the productions found it virtually impossible to continue filming or to acquire finance.