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Funding opportunity: „Television Content Fund” program

26 April 2018
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The U.S. Embassy to the Republic of Moldova seeks a qualified implementing organization that will manage the “Television Content Fund” program, which aims to increase the quality and quantity of locally produced content on Moldovan television through co-productions that expand investment and employment in the media space.  The implementing organization will ensure the achievement of the program activities and objectives described in this Notice of Funding Opportunity and will be responsible for overall logistical coordination, management of funds, and coordination with the U.S. Embassy’s Public Affairs Section on the initiatives within this funding award.

A.1 Background

The Moldovan media space remains dominated by television.  Within the Television industry, entertainment content rebroadcast and/or repackaged from the Russian Federation continues to maintain a dominant local position, given its low costs and high quality, when contrasted against primarily low-quality domestic production of entertainment programs for broadcast and the high cost of licensing high-quality western formats and entertainment programs.  This program is an effort to expand local capacity for high-quality domestic production, develop opportunities for international co-productions and investment, and to challenge the oft repeated assertion that Romanian language programming and local productions cannot be competitive against Russian language programs rebroadcast and/or repackaged from abroad,

A.2 Program Goals

The goals of the programs are to create an environment in the creative television content industry which will allow Moldova’s creative content industry to mature to a level where it can be sustainable.  Ideally, Moldovan production companies would have the capacity to conceive, produce, and distribute high-quality programming and formats within Moldova and abroad. Moldova boasts a strong competitive advantage in terms of quality logistics management, low prices, excellent natural settings, and a location which provide for excellent connections by air and land to potential eastern and western partners.  The success in the Republic of Georgia for developing a strong domestic creative content industry with significant investments in foreign and international productions shows what can be achievable in the region, and the U.S. Embassy hopes that with the right incentives and capital injections Moldova’s industry can be equally successful.

The program will consist of three primary lines of effort:  The funding and production locally produced television series pilots, the licensing and distribution of American television formats and/or entertainment programs for television broadcast in Moldova, and the dubbing of American and European entertainment content into the Romanian language for television broadcast in Moldova.

Submission Dates and Times:  All components of the application must be received by MoldovaGrants@state.gov or grants.gov no later than June 15, 2018 11:59 PM, Moldova Time.  Late applications will not be reviewed. Applicants will receive an email confirmation of receipt from MoldovaGrants@state.gov.

For application submission instructions go to: https://www.grants.gov/web/grants/view-opportunity.html?oppId=303573