Creative England has put a £1m fund up for grabs for small and medium sized businesses based outside of London looking to develop multiplatform TV services.

The screen agency has issued a call for registrations of interest to secure an interest free loan of £50,000 to £100,000 which will be matched with the company sharing the development costs. The deadline for entries is 31 August.

Creative England’s business development fund includes the development of games and mobile apps and is also designed to support projects in other sectors, such as healthcare and government services.

The fund hopes to support initiatives such as Maverick Television’s work for the NHS.

The investment represents the first stage of the government’s £5m regional growth fund, which was handed to Creative England in November.

Creative England’s director of business development Jim Farmery [pictured] said: “By launching this programme I hope we can stimulate the development of some really interesting content and applications and support projects that otherwise would have struggled to get off the ground”.

This article was first published by Broadcast.