BAI Awards over €280k in Funding to Irish Film Institute under its Archiving Scheme

The Broadcasting Authority of Ireland (BAI) has today announced the award of funding for the amount of €288,816.00 to the Irish Film Institute (IFI) under the second round of its Archiving Scheme.

The Scheme, which is provided for under the Broadcasting Fund, has been designed to provide funding support for the development of an archiving culture in the Irish broadcasting sector, contributing to the preservation of Ireland’s broadcasting heritage. Similar to the initial funding round, the focus of the second round of the Scheme was to prioritise and safeguard broadcast material at risk of obsolescence.

The IFI was awarded funding to enable them to archive a range of advertisements from between the 1960’s and 1980’s.

A total of €2.26m was awarded to ten successful applicants under the second round of this Scheme.  The successful applicants were selected from 18 applications which were received ahead of the closing date in April, seeking support of approximately €7m.  All applications were deemed valid and were considered by an assessment panel made up of four independent experts and one representative of the BAI.
[quote]In approving the award of funding to the IFI, the Authority was satisfied that they had fully met the objectives of the Scheme and that a noteworthy level of advertising material would be safeguarded, that could otherwise be lost.  The Authority was also particularly pleased that commitments to digitisation and accessibility were features of this, and indeed all projects in receipt of funding support.

The Archiving Scheme was approved for implementation in May 2012 by the Minister for Communications and the European Commission until the end of 2014.  The Authority has, through the Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, sought an extension to the Scheme to the end of April 2016, in order to operate a number of further rounds over the next two years and to facilitate an analysis of the operation, effectiveness and impact of the Scheme.  The BAI looks forward to receiving confirmation of the Scheme’s extension at an early date, in order to facilitate its continued operation.[/quote] Michael O’Keeffe, Chief Executive of the BAI

Full details of the Scheme are available online.