ITV Creates $615,000 Coronavirus Development Fund For Producers
ITV has introduced plans to create a £500,000 ($615,000) improvement fund to help producers by way of the coronavirus-induced manufacturing shutdown.
ITV needs to extend funding in improvement so it may be faster in greenlighting concepts as soon as the COVID-19 lockdown is lifted and filming can get again underway on TV exhibits. Non-scripted codecs are a selected space of focus, it mentioned.
In addition to the funding pot, which is designed to generate concepts for later this yr and 2021, ITV director of tv Kevin Lygo pledged to extend on-line conferences between commissioners and producers.
He mentioned: “ITV’s success is predicated on the concepts which might be delivered to us by indies from throughout the UK and we don’t need that to cease. We have now this cash particularly accessible to ramp up improvement over the following few months so we are able to hit the bottom working when present restrictions are lifted.
“The commissioning groups are prepared to extend the variety of digital conferences they’ve with a purpose to construct up an thrilling slate over the following few months – so in case you have an thought for us, particularly within the unscripted house, we’re ready to assist fund that instantly.”
ITV introduced the event simply an hour after the BBC set out a five-point plan to assist producers throughout the pandemic. The plan contains pledges to extend improvement spending, in addition to a dedication to push extra funding into acquisitions.
ITV is especially uncovered to the COVID-19 disaster provided that half of its income comes from TV promoting. It has scrapped beforehand issued monetary forecasts for 2020 and mentioned it plans to slash its program price range by £100M ($123M) this yr. chunk of this will likely be as a result of it’ll now not broadcast Euro 2020.