Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what plans he has to support the work of the Young Audience Content Fund.

The publicly funded Young Audiences Content Fund will be supported into its third year, ensuring young audiences have access to engaging and relevant content that reflects UK society and their own diverse experiences wherever they live in the country.

The success of the Fund is evaluated against the criteria set out at launch, including: quality; innovation; additionality; nations and regions; diversity; new voices; plurality and audience reach. Assessments of the fund are ongoing, but the fund has already published its year one analysis, and will be publishing its year two analysis later this year. Year one analysis is available here.

One of the primary aims of the Fund is to increase the provision of content which is reflective of the cultural identity across the UK nations and regions. Merit is therefore awarded to productions that are representative of the nations and regions, both on and off air. UK indigenous language content is also eligible for funding with a target aspiration of 5% of the awards distributed.

As set out in the Year 1 analysis, 71% of projects awarded production funding in Year 1 were set in recognisable UK locations outside of London and the South East, in every home nation. Furthermore, the majority of production companies that were awarded support were based outside of London and the South East.

The recent Year 3 funding award of £10.7 million is a continued commitment from the government to support the Young Audiences Content Fund and the production of UK originated children’s television programming in a challenging financial climate. Year three analysis will be published in due course.