Audio Content Fund supports Wales, NI and LGBT

The penultimate set of programmes being made through funding from the Audio Content Fund has been announced – with grants awarded to projects airing on stations in South Wales, Northern Ireland and a network of stations for the LGBT community.

It brings the total number of projects funded through the special Coronavirus Support fund to 25, with just under £370,000 awarded to independent production companies to make the programmes. The special round has now closed, with the final projects and remaining £30,000 of funding to be allocated later this week.

Here are the details of the latest successful projects:

The Foghorn Company will produce a series of Lockdown Love Letters to be broadcast during May on a network of radio stations in Northern Ireland. Key-workers and their families will send letters of appreciation to each other, crafted into beautiful soundscapes and voiced by well-known actors, for broadcast on Q Radio, Lisburn FM, Bangor FM, and Down Community Radio.

The disabled and visually-impaired community of South Wales will be given a voice by Sixteen Media, for their project Unheard Voices, broadcasting in May and June on a radio network in the Rhondda Valley. Five-minute profiles of how blind people and people with mobility impairments are getting through the lockdown will be shared by BRO Radio, GTFM, and Rhondda Radio.

The absence of large-scale Pride events across the country will be felt significantly by the UK’s LGBT community – something which UK Radio Pride seeks to address, with 14 hours of special programming on Gaydio, Pride FM and Juice FM during June and July, made by production company 2ZY. The three stations will come together for a programme of live music, mixes, debate, comedy, profiles and remembrance, which will also be packaged up into a 1hr highlights programme and made available to all community radio stations around the country.