What is MEDIA?

Funding
MEDIA offers funding to European producers, distributors, sales agents, exhibitors, training courses, festivals and more.
Networking
Details of MEDIA-funded markets, festivals, co-production, promotional and online activities for audiovisual professionals.
Training
Details of over 60 MEDIA-funded courses available for professionals working in the European audiovisual industry.

Home » About us » What is MEDIA?

The MEDIA Programme (often referred to as MEDIA) is the European Union’s financial support programme for the audiovisual industries. It currently comprises 17 different funding schemes, each targeting a different area of the audiovisual sector.The programme operates in seven-year funding rounds and has existed since 1991. The current programme, MEDIA 2007, commenced on 1 January 2007 and will run to 31 December 2013. It has a budget of €755 million to support training, project development, and the distribution and promotion of European audiovisual works.

Who can apply?

The MEDIA Programme has funding schemes offering non-repayable grants to producers, distributors, sales agents, organisers of training courses, operators in new digital technologies, operators of VoD platforms, exhibitors and organisers of festivals, markets and promotional events.

Which countries can take part?

All 27 European Union Member States participate in the MEDIA Programme, plus a few other countries.

The full list of participating countries is:

Member States of the European Union as of 1/1/2007: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, The Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, UK
Countries of the European Economic Area participating in the MEDIA Programme: Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway
Croatia
Switzerland.

How MEDIA works

The MEDIA Unit in Brussels manages the policy and evaluation of the Programme and its budget. The Unit is part of the Directorate-General for Education and Culture at the European Commission.

The Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA) is in charge of the operational management of the MEDIA Programme. This includes:

Preparing and launching Calls for Proposals
Evaluation and pre-selection of applicants and projects
Contracting and signing project agreements
Monitoring of projects and communicating with and providing information to beneficiaries.

The MEDIA Management Committee is made up of representatives from all participating countries, usually from ministries and/or national public funding agencies. It supervises the Commission in approving the Programme's budget, guidelines and funding allocations.

MEDIA Desks and Antennae staff answer enquiries about MEDIA funding. They also encourage participation in training courses, festivals and markets, and help prepare applications. Each country has a central office, called a Desk, usually based in the capital city. One or more regional offices in key cities often support this national Desk - these are known as Antennae. The MEDIA Desks and Antennae are usually hosted by a national film agency or other relevant organisation.

MEDIA call for experts

The MEDIA Programme uses experts from the audiovisual industry to assess projects. These external experts analyse the projects in relation to the selection criteria of a particular funding scheme and advise the relevant department of the Executive Agency for Education, Audiovisual and Culture (EACEA), which is responsible for the processing of applications.

If you are a professional with significant experience (at least four years) in project development, distribution, training, or promotion and festivals you are encouraged to forward your details to be put on the experts database. You need to be able to read applications in English or French and to produce evaluation reports in one of these two languages. You also need to be able to take part in discussions in English. Knowledge of other European languages is welcome but not essential. Expertise in managing international projects and in budgetary and financial aspects is an asset.

The EACEA uses one central database to contact experts to advise on a range of funding Programmes, including the MEDIA Programme. There are no deadlines; you can submit your details until the end of June 2013. The EACEA will contact you in due course to inform you whether your expression of interest was accepted. This, however, does not mean that you will be given an assignment. Experts are sourced from all over Europe. It is in the UK's interest that the UK is adequately represented in the pool of experts, therefore the MEDIA offices in the UK encourage you to apply.