The BAI announced to the new awards under the Sound and Vision scheme for radio and television productions. There were some eye openers. Firstly the business to be in is animation. Over three quarters of a million euro awarded to animation projects including the 5% support of the Channel 4 (a UK channel that has an advertising opt-out to take ad revenue from the domestic channels all licensed by the BAI) production 'Oops The Adventure Continues' for €100,000. Also the Cartoon Saloon's feature film 'Wolfwalkers' received 2% funding at the cost of €200,000.
But perhaps the eye opening awards were for Oireachtas TV, the channel that broadcasts proceedings from Dail Eireann who are now producing programmes. The main question is WHY? The channel has such low viewing figures, was set up to broadcast proceedings from the houses of the Oireachtas and committee proceedings. There is no EPG and therefore no one will know when 'extra' historical programming will be broadcast and surely any extra programming should be sponsored by the Oireachtas itself.
The two awards, with Dublin Community TV receiving none, were €125,000 to Yellow Asylum Films for 85% of the production costs of a single episode titled 'In Their Words' and €70,000 to PaperOwl Films for a 11 part animated series 'The Future is You', earning them 65% of the production costs. This seems to a pointless award when there were other worthy projects denied access to funding under Sound and Vision. The excellent work of these companies is not in doubt but both the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland and Oireachtas TV need to explain in more detail these awards, their benefits and oversight of the money awarded.
http://www.bai.ie/en/bai-allocates-almost-e5-8m-120-projects-sound-vision-scheme/
