15 Radio and TV projects secure €2M for Irish Language Programming

Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media, Catherine Martin, TD has today (30/11/2022) welcomed the announcement by the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland (BAI) that €2 million will be awarded to 15 radio and TV projects to support Irish language programming.

The awards were made to projects under the Broadcasting Fund, Sound and Vision Scheme. As part of the Governments wider plan to support and increase the use of Irish as an everyday language, this is one of a number of additional, targeted funding rounds which were made possible by the increased funding provided to the Broadcasting Fund by Minister Martin.

Speaking today Minister Martin said:

'Earlier this year, I announced a significant increase in the resources available to support broadcast projects with a particular focus on a number of areas, including Irish language and bi-lingual productions. The radio and television programmes which will be made possible by today's announcement will provide even more opportunities for audiences to engage with Irish productions.'

Further details of the projects, which include ten radio and five TV productions of which five are bilingual and ten in Irish are available here .

The Minister added:

"I particularly welcome the enhanced emphasis in this funding round on the BAI's 'women in a creative lead' criteria. The voices and input of women will be significant across all the programme productions, including featured performers and producers."

NOTE TO EDITORS:

This round of awards is one of several funded through the Sound & Vision Broadcasting Funding Scheme, which received an additional funding of €10.5m from Minister Martin, announced in May this year. This funding is designed to enable the BAI to initiate a number of other streams of special funding rounds, including:

• €5m for broadcasting projects which raise awareness of climate change, promote climate action and support behavioural change (this includes €2.5m approved by the Minister for Environment, Climate and Communications, Eamonn Ryan).

• €2m for live music broadcasting projects; which were recently announced.

• €2m for Irish language broadcasting content (the awards under which are being announced today).

• €1.5m to projects under Round 42 of Sound and Vision which were announced earlier this year.

The proposed funding package of €2m is in addition to the BAI's commitment to ring-fence 20-25% of funding to support Irish language / bilingual content in open funding rounds.

Funded projects include documentaries, drama, reality TV and music. Viewers will be able to discover a uniquely Irish experience of womanhood; to follow 12 singletons finding love and learning the Irish language; or to be intrigued by a new TV crime drama with a rich vein of dark comedy running through the story. There will also be a number of new radio projects, including a ten-part series of concerts featuring artists recorded before a live audience.

Details of the fifteen successful projects are available on bai.ie .