Funding for Creative Industries and cross-​media platforms

Today’s morn­ing I happened to be at Hackney House or as other guests repor­ted on Twitter feed ‘tent with gravel’. The Technology Strategy Board wel­comed us with hot cof­fee. Shortly, Simon Hopkins announced that today we will kick off with applic­a­tions for fund­ing com­pet­i­tion of Convergence in a Digital Landscape. The Technology Strategy Board is to invest £1.8m in feas­ib­il­ity pro­jects. All micro busi­nesses involved with cre­at­ive indus­tries are wel­come to apply, but be aware, speak­ers emphas­ized sev­eral times “We are fund­ing tech here”. Some star­ted silently giggle at sup­posedly tiny budget. The other ones right away raised the ques­tion if vol­un­tary work can be con­sidered as the remain­ing 25% of pro­ject fund (TSB funds 75%). In this post you will find a short over­view of the dis­cus­sions as well as require­ments for applicants.

Panel dis­cus­sion “TV is Now the Second Screen”

Frank Boyd, Director, Creative Industries KTN

The start of the day was full of con­fu­sion in the air. Attendees were keen to cla­rify what is the invest­ment for. Is it focused on par­tic­u­lar media plat­forms? What is meant by cross-​platform pro­jects? What the invest­ment aims to pro­mote? Does it require the final product or just a pro­to­type? Where should be the focus of applic­ants? And so forth.

Matthew Brown from Technology Strategy Board was not into clear answers for sure. He emphas­ized that the aim of invest­ment is to build UK cre­at­ive eco­nomy and see what future busi­ness mod­els could look like. TSB is look­ing for pro­jects which have poten­tial to be com­mer­cial­ised, spot the money and cre­ate con­tent for multi-​platforms. And this is it, really. To sum­mar­ise — “Just show us what you have and we will think if you worth our money”.

The second ses­sion fea­tured Nikhil Shah and Grant Goddard. Both already have exper­i­ence with applic­a­tions and have been fun­ded by TSB. They shared their exper­i­ence work­ing in music industry and gave some advice from applic­ants’ point of view. These are the ones I wrote down:

• The paper­work for TSB is extremely com­plic­ated, so do estim­ate and include hours for pro­ject man­age­ment in your application
• TSB like big ideas, while apply­ing be ambi­tious and don’t be afraid to say that you are going to change the world
• TSB funds super risky pro­jects, they are aware of your chances to fail
• Apply for fund­ing only if the idea is a core to your busi­ness, don’t apply just for get­ting money as you will get eas­ily dis­trac­ted from your busi­ness aims
• Don’t take too many part­ners, 2–3 part­ners are fair enough
• The calls of TSB are mis­lead­ing, so do not hes­it­ate to con­tact them sev­eral times and cla­rify if you under­stood everything correctly
• Be patient and learn from mistakes

Finally, we had a panel dis­cus­sion about TV, broad­cast media and inter­act­ive media. There was a clear divide between speak­ers. Some emphas­ised young gen­er­a­tion and emer­ging trends of inter­act­ive media. In their opin­ion TV became only the second screen. Other group claimed that tra­di­tional media is not going away. Its’ strong busi­ness model is far affront of new media.

I enjoyed the opin­ion of Paul Bennun — CCO of Somethin’ Else. He high­lighted the dif­fer­ences of product cycle betwen broad­cast world and inter­act­ive media.

Mike Dicks, Senior Policy Executive, Pact

Well, of course the biggest busi­ness is where the masses hang out. However, not being the biggest TV fan myself, I am pasion­ate about niche con­tent, innov­at­ive approach, gami­fic­a­tion, inter­act­ive nar­rat­ive and other mind blow­ing fea­tures which mostly appear in new media and digital. I am not sure what will hap­pen to cross media plat­forms, but the future seems appeal­ing and prom­ising. Hopefully we will get some fresh ideas out of this investment!

If you are inter­ested in apply­ing for fund­ing, please find more inform­a­tion here. The max­imum budget for one pro­ject should not exceed £ 75.000 and the dead­line for regis­tra­tion is 15 of August, 2012. Good Luck!

Traditional media VS Cross-​media platforms

About author:

Gintarė Žitkevičiūtė
Gintare Zitkeviciute is Art Pit’s thinker and doer. In her work practise, she values lean approach, creativity and quick decisions. She doesn't like working with random people and thinks that a team is a heart of successful project. For that reason, she carefully picks people she works with on everyday basis. She is mostly interested in innovatio... Read further >