Government announces new £500m scheme to kickstart film and television production

29th July 2020

Last night the Culture Secretary, Oliver Dowdon, announced a new £500m government backed scheme to support film and TV productions struggling to get COVID-19 related insurance. The film and TV production industry in the UK supports 180,000 jobs and is worth £12bn to our economy. The scheme proposes to get film and TV production up and running by giving productions the promise of support over future losses if they are incurred. Further details on the eligibility process and claims system will be provided in the coming weeks, headlines currently are as follows:

  • The Film & TV Production Restart Scheme will be available to compensate productions after they have restarted, only where costs are then incurred due to delays or abandonment as a result of the coronavirus.
  • This is a temporary measure, supporting productions which commence filming before the end of the calendar year and for coronavirus related losses through to the end of June 2021. It will be possible to back date any future claims for eligible losses to today’s date.
  • Subject to state aid approval, the intention is that 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, upon agreement with the Government that abandonment was necessary.
  • There will be a total cap on claims per production of £5m, and productions will need to pay an appropriate excess when seeking to claim under the scheme, as well as an appropriate fee when joining the scheme. Productions will also need to purchase insurance to cover non-coronavirus risks to ensure their production is adequately insured.
  • Productions will need to provide evidence that they cannot return to work because of a lack of insurance.

The Governments announcement is available here.

Jon Dawson

Partner, Head of Creative, Media & Technology
+44 20 7396 4374
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