Channel 4 development deal for Belfast television company

Belfast-based DoubleBand Films is to benefit from a £260,000 company development deal, funded by Channel 4 and the NIFTC Company Development Fund, a joint venture between Invest Northern Ireland and the Northern Ireland Film & Television Commission (NIFTC).
The partnership was announced February 19 at an industry event at the Ormeau Baths Gallery in Belfast.
As part of its 'Creative Cities' strategy, Channel 4 committed a package of cash and in-kind support worth £65,000 to DoubleBand. Over £100,000 has been committed from the NIFTC/Invest NI Company Development Fund while the production company itself is also investing a significant amount of funding in its growth strategy.
The NIFTC developed the Company Development Fund to promote market driven business strategies for growth within the independent production sector and assist a limited number of production companies to develop and modernise their strategies so as to compete effectively in national and international markets.
Creative Cities is Channel 4's collective name for its ambitious programme of activities throughout the regional cities of the UK and partnership projects are a key part of this strategy.
DoubleBand is one of Northern Ireland's most creative independent television production companies and is a regular supplier to Channel 4. Recent programmes for the broadcaster include ‘George Best's Body’, ‘Seven Days That Shook Sven’ and ‘Beckham and the Battle With Argentina’. The company has also just completed ‘War in Mind’, another documentary for Channel 4, following a sufferer of Parkinson's Disease who undergoes a pioneering operation.
DoubleBand is also a regular supplier of programmes to the BBC. Recent productions for BBC Northern Ireland have included the archive-based series ‘Super 8 Stories’ and a documentary ‘Christine's Children’ (short-listed for a prestigious Royal Television Society award). Last year also saw the production of ‘Roman Abramovich - Mr. Chelski’, a DoubleBand documentary for BBC4 and BBC2.
The company will use the funding package to finance expansion plans, including the establishment of a dedicated network development team incorporating four new jobs to generate more programme ideas for UK-wide broadcasters.
Channel 4's champion of the Creative Cities strategy and Director of Nations & Regions, Stuart Cosgrove, said: "DoubleBand Films is a successful production company that regularly pitches to Channel 4. We are keen to help improve production performance in Northern Ireland and so rather than invest in an ad hoc, programme-by-programme basis, we are investing a lump sum to help the company better plan their business and appoint key staff to work on developing new ideas. The company attracted further funding from the new Company Development Fund and we backed their entrepreneurism."
Richard Williams ,CEO of the NIFTC, said: "I am delighted that DoubleBand, with the backing of Channel 4, is the first independent production company to secure backing from the Company Development Fund. This type of strong, long term relationship between production company and broadcaster is critical if Northern Irish production companies are to grow and thrive within UK network broadcasting. I congratulate Channel 4 for adopting this development strategy and would call on other broadcasters to consider how they too can build constructive, financially secure relationships with independent production companies here so as to jointly increase Northern Ireland's unacceptably low contribution to and return from UK network broadcasting."
Managing Co-Director of DoubleBand Films, Dermot Lavery, added:
"We see this as a truly exciting breakthrough for DoubleBand Films and a very tangible endorsement of the solid work we have done for Channel 4 over the last six years. But perhaps more importantly, it is recognition by a major network broadcaster that Northern Ireland is a region with considerable network capability and ambition.
"The Company Development Fund initiative is a very radical and far-sighted collaboration between Invest NI, the NIFTC, DoubleBand and in this case Channel 4, but the fact is that the future is bright for network production in Northern Ireland. With more network commissions than ever before now coming to local companies like ourselves, we see DoubleBand as part of an expanding family of creative industry exporters. In terms of the potential, we believe that this is only the beginning."
(GB)