Saturday, February 26, 2011

Ulster-Scots Broadcast Fund

#alttext# Last Autumn, I was invited to take part in an event at BBC Northern Ireland, as a discussion session about Ulster-Scots and broadcasting. The audience was made up of the local independent television production sector (I blogged about the event here.) The Fund itself comes from the Department of Culture, Media and Sport in London, is set at £1m per annum for five years, and will be administered through Northern Ireland Screen. Just before Christmas N.I. Screen invited me to join the Committee, for an initial 2 years, which will oversee the Fund and the programmes which it decides to support.

I've accepted this role (unpaid!) and am very much looking forward to seeing the proposals which are brought forward, and to working with such a professional, experienced organisation as N.I. Screen. As such, I have declined a number of approaches from tv companies to assist with their programme proposals. Submissions are to be made by 4th March.

• NI Screen information about this first call for proposals is available here.
• BBC Northern Ireland has published guidance for independent producers which is available here.

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Posted by Mark Thompson at Saturday, February 26, 2011  

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3 comments:

Burnsy said...

Nice one. I'd love to see a documentary about the Katikati settlement in New Zealand. Apparently the only planned Ulster settlement in the world. In 1875 George Vesey Stewart, an Ulster-Scot from Tyrone, brought the first party of Irish settlers to Katikati to found a town there. A second party arrived from Belfast in 1878, giving a total of 600 settlers. Today Katikati has many murals & sculptures around the town telling of their history & heritage.

12:04 AM  
Charlie Reynolds said...

Could have the potential to promote Ulster-Scots culture and language and would hope that the language as spoken by the native speakers is given a chance to be heard.

6:56 AM  
Mark Thompson said...

Charlie - I hope so. Just because something wears the Ulster-Scots label disnae mean its actually ony use.

2:27 PM  

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