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Business News
BBC winding down Performing Arts Fund
By Chris Cooke | Published on Tuesday 12 May 2015
The BBC announced last week that it is winding up its Performing Arts Fund, which is good news for haters of the performing arts, and of funds that support the performing arts, and of good things in general.
The fund was created in 2003, mainly to do something worthwhile with the money generated when people phoned in to vote on the Beeb’s short-lived music talent show ‘Fame Academy’. Subsequently phone vote monies from other shows like ‘Strictly Come Dancing’ and ‘The Voice’ were pumped into the fund, which in turn provided bursaries totalling £5 million to 1200 aspiring performers.
But with people increasingly voting for ‘Strictly’ et al via non-phone based routes where no money changes hands, a lot less money is rolling in, which is why the initiative is being wound up. A remaining £156,100 will be split between seventeen alumni before shutdown.