Arts Council England to create MCN for the arts

Arts Council England has unveiled plans for a new online multichannel network (MCN) for the arts and has offered a £1.8 million (€2.3 million) grant to online video specialist Rightster to set up and manage the new network. 

By providing seedcorn investment to support a new network for the arts, the Arts Council hopes to extend the reach of publically funded arts and culture.

Over the coming months, Rightster will work with the arts and culture sector to develop the MCN proposition, with a view to launching the new channel in spring/summer 2015.

“There is some great arts content online, but it is hard to find and fragmented.  We hope that the award to Rightster will support the arts sector to find and develop new audiences and build their profile in this expanding digital space,” said Simon Mellor, the Arts Council’s executive director for arts and culture.

“We believe the new MCN will be particularly effective in supporting the profile of smaller organisations and artists across England that are producing great content but don’t have well-known brands and therefore find it harder to build audiences for their content.”