A UK tax break for producers of children’s live-action content has been hailed as a “Godsend” and is already enabling shows to go ahead that would otherwise not have been made.

The tax break, confirmed in 2014 ^[1] and formally introduced just last month, follows similar schemes for adult drama and animation.

Producers can claim relief on 25% of qualifying production expenditure, and Valerie Ames, director of production at Kindle Entertainment, told C21 its impact had been immediate.

The UK prodco is working on the BBC’s forthcoming live-action series Jamillah & Aladdin and Ames said another show was now going ahead for the pubcaster as “a direct result of the tax credit.”

She said the new series, details of which are being kept under wraps, is going ahead because Kindle can now “get the financing cost out of the credit.”

Mike Watts, co-founder at Horrible Henry producer Novel Entertainment and chair of trade body Pact’s children’s and animation policy group, which campaigned for the scheme, told C21 it was a “Godsend” for producers and “couldn’t come soon enough.”

“If you go back to the film industry, their tax credit was a real shot in the arm, and animation has felt a very positive boost too. The live-action credit should have the same impact,” he said.

The break is estimated to be worth almost £3m (US$5.1m) a year to the government as a result of increased activity in the sector, according to research done for Pact, and Ames said international coproductions could increase.

Kindle is in talks with Disney on potential shows, while Watts said it would be “immensely beneficial” to producers looking abroad. The UK has a long history of producing popular and commercially lucrative kids’ live-action programming, such as preschool hits Teletubbies and Tweenies.

However, prodcos have been hit by declining demand from UK pubcaster the BBC, which commissions the vast majority of shows, prompting execs to call on other terrestrial broadcasters ^[2] to up their investment in the genre.