Irish free-to-air channel TG4 is rolling out an US$11.6-million funding package to commission original Irish-language content, including concepts for kids.

The funding will be available for development and production across multiple genres and audiences, including children and tweens. It was established to support new producers and start-up studios, but it’s available to existing businesses, too.

Producers can access the funds through open commissioning rounds. TG4 quietly ran one before Christmas, and will announce the resulting contracts sometime this year, according to a release.

This new funding is part of TG4’s broader mandate to develop an independent production sector in Ireland’s Gaeltacht district, where Irish is the predominant language.

More broadly, TG4 has been making a push into kids content over the last few years, primarily through the 2023 launch of its Cúla4 channel, which is stocked with local Irish-language productions and international acquisitions including Miraculous (ZAG), Dinosaur Train (The Jim Henson Company) and Pip & Posy (Magic Light Pictures). TG4 recently co-commissioned an animated festive special called Nollaí with BBC Northern Ireland and S4C that it aired last month.

The new funding could help boost Ireland’s animation industry, whose biggest obstacle is that there aren’t enough local buyers to support its many studios. The country is an animation hotspot, boasting a strong 32% tax credit and more than 2,500 creatives belonging to the Animation Ireland trade organization.

Irish studios and distributors have been experimenting and branching out to keep revenue coming in as the whole industry faces a slowdown; Sixteen South added a first third-party title to its distribution catalogue in October, and Monster Entertainment opened a new studio in November to produce CG-animated films with an Irish feel.

Image courtesy of TG4.