As part of the package of announcements made at the start of the week regarding the UK government’s approach to Covid-19 (with Prime Minister Boris Johnson pushing us all to “live with Covid”), it’s quietly winding down its Film & TV Production Restart Scheme.
This was a pivotal initiative for the UK screen industry in lockdown, at a point where it was looking near-impossible to restart film and television production. However, the government stepped in with financial support to the tune of some £500m, which was spent propping up the budgets of an assortment of productions to the tune of up to 20%.
The scheme is set to come to an end on April 30th, and by then it’ll have helped over 1,000 films and TV shows, including many high profile productions.
The fear is that the gap the government backing leaves behind won’t be covered by insurance companies, still wary of a Covid relapse and never ones to put themselves in the way of too much risk. The confidence in the market still feels a little shaky, and there’s a fear that come May 1st, some productions will struggle as a result of the government funding withdrawal.
On the government side, it has been open that it can’t keep the scheme open indefinitely, and has provided due warning of its winding down. It’s now coming to that crunch.
We wait and see what happens next, but uncertainty in the sector is clearly not going away in a hurry…
