Indie rockers Blossoms and Panic Over among those benefitting from £1.6m fund
Indie rockers Blossoms and Panic Over will be among the music artists to benefit from a pot of £1.6 million.
The Music Export Growth Scheme (Megs), from the Department for Business and Trade (DBT) and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), allocated support to 58 UK acts.
The scheme, run in partnership between industry and the Government, supports small to medium-sized music companies looking to grow their artists' profiles internationally.
Over the last decade, the Megs has helped more than 450 artists, including rapper Dave, dance act Jungle, singer Rina Sawayama, hip-hop poet Kae Tempest and 2023 Mercury Prize winners Ezra Collective.
This year, companies representing Greater Manchester-formed Blossoms, Hertfordshire's electronic music act Maribou State, and Newcastle's singer-songwriter Andrew Cushin, have been awarded the money.
2017 Mercury Prize nominees Blossoms broke into the charts with their debut self-titled album in August 2016, which peaked at number one, and their catchy indie pop single Charlemagne.
The Stockport-based five-piece were listed on the BBC's Sound Of 2016 list, coming in fourth place.
Northern Ireland rockers Panic Over, from Bangor, are among those named along with The X Factor star Grace Davies, London Contemporary Orchestra, who performed a 24-hour concert live in 2022, London-based female rock duo Nova Twins, Cornwall's Wunderhorse, and Manchester's pop act The Lottery Winners and hip hop artist Antony Szmierek.
The Isle Of Wight's Coach Party, Glasgow's Corto.alto, who were 2024's Mercury Prize nominees, London-based Electric Enemy and poet and actor Dan Whitlam, Nottingham band Divorce, three-piece Hastings rockers HotWax and Merseyside's Red Rum Club, were also on the list.
Gareth Thomas, minister for exports and small businesses, said: 'Often bands and their labels are smaller firms who don't have access to the funding needed to support their plans to go global and this scheme can provide that crucial shot in the arm to help those acts on their way to stardom.
'With past recipients including UK companies representing acts like Nova Twins, shortlisted for the Mercury Prize in 2022, and Ezra Collective who went on to win the prestigious prize in 2023, this scheme is a proven success with hundreds of artists now benefitting as a result.
'As a key growth sector, bringing almost £125 billion to the UK economy in 2023, the government will continue to support the Creative Industries through schemes like Megs to showcase British talent, build on the success of our industrial strategy and achieve our mission for faster growth.'
Since the government began providing support in 2014, around £7.9 million has been given out in grants.
Panic Over said: 'We are delighted to be able to use this amazing opportunity to play shows and gigs all across the Republic of Ireland over the rest of the year.
'This support means the world to us, and we can't thank everyone involved enough for believing in our music and the journey ahead.'
Alt-pop duo and recipient Dolores Forever called it a 'complete game changer for us', which will help them get out a second album, and reach 'audiences which we haven't had the resources to do so before'.
According to UK Music, British music exports revenue in 2023 was £4.6 billion, a 15% increase compared with 2022.
Last year, Northern Irish rap trio Kneecap won their discrimination court battle against UK leader of the Opposition and former business secretary Kemi Badenoch after the UK Government conceded it was 'unlawful' to refuse them a £14,250 Megs funding award.
Their Kneecap film was nominated for six Baftas and took home the award for outstanding debut by a British writer, director or producer at this year's ceremony.
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Often they're reusing actors,' says Adam Nayman, a Toronto-based film critic and professor at the University of Toronto. 'You kind of build up your own star system where these people are not stars, but they become recognizable to your audience.' GAM's streaming service is currently advertising 'Summer Romcoms' like Sweet Maple Romance, 'Military Heroes' like Peace River: God, Country & The Cowboy Way, and 'Stories of Faith' like Disciples in the Moonlight. The company also launched a specific childrens' hub on their streaming service this week. They are trying to build a catalog of films that fit together in one neat, Christian package. 'Sometimes you'll say, 'I love that show, but I don't know where it is — is this on Max? Is this on Netflix?'' said Kristen Roberts, Great American Media's chief revenue officer and executive vice president of programming, in a recent interview at GAM's New York offices. 'We want to be the complete opposite of that. We want people to say, 'I watch Pure Flix, I watch Great American Family,'' referencing two arms of GAM. The goal, she said, is for viewers to say, ''I watch that service' more than 'I watch that particular show.'' Faith-based networks also have the benefit of being able to position themselves in direct opposition with what they argue is a liberal agenda in Hollywood. The community of faith-based filmmakers can set themselves up as the antidote to cultural products that they see as inappropriate for children and adults alike. 'When you look at White Lotus and you look at situations where they're creating storylines that have incest in them and they're being applauded by the entertainment community, that's an intentional way of taking aberrant behavior and trying to normalize it,' Abbott said on the Moms for America podcast. 'We see it all the time in entertainment — every day. You can turn on almost any movie, any network, go to any movie, and I know it's a very intentional strategy.' The success of faith-based media companies is in large part a reaction to the kind of frustrations that Abbott elucidates. The industry is buoyed by the very thing that it rails against — and it's the response that drives some of the success. 'They've really not ever tried to pretend that they're for everyone,' says Nayman. 'Instead, they say, 'isn't this what you've been missing.' And if you're the one getting that message, and you're the one being reached by that advertisement, then your grievance is being stoked, even if it's underneath the guise of a warm hug.' 'You're assuming that people are fed up with anything that resembles something mainstream or something secular,' Nayman adds. 'And I think they really, really take advantage of a polarized moment.' There's tension between faith-based content and the rest of the media landscape. The faith-based films and television shows — when they're reviewed at all — are regularly panned by critics. Sound of Freedom, the film from this universe that was recently reviewed by the most mainstream critics, has a Metacritic score of 36 out of 100. 'It's bizarre, unsettling and yet — in the filmmaking equivalent of turning wine to water — bracingly dull to boot,' read a review in The Telegraph. 'The quality is a really big issue,' Leo acknowledges. He argues conservatives need to invest in incubating talent that can make family-values movies and shows that are more slick, better produced and appeal to a wider audience. The art in this space often has no real aspirations towards acclaim as it's connoted by an Oscar or Emmy. In fact, in some ways they've created a parallel industry, with their own critics and markers of success. The Movieguide Awards, which are held every year and which largely honor films and television that Movieguide — a service that brands itself as 'movie reviews for Christians' — believes connects with their values. In 2025, winners included the movie Reagan, actor Candace Cameron Bure for A Christmas Less Traveled and Americans With No Address, a documentary about the country's homelessness crisis narrated by actor William Baldwin. Movieguide rates Hollywood films and gives them a 'family content' rating. In the company's annual 'Report to Hollywood,' they argue that films with strong Christian values perform better at the box office. Their formula relies on the often strong performance of children's films and doesn't include every mainstream hit; both Barbie and Oppenheimer had low 'family content' ratings, for example. 'We have a new generation that's having kids, and they want faith and values, their generation does not want sex and violence.' says Ted Baehr, the publisher and editor-in-chief of Movieguide. He cites this year's Academy Awards Best Picture winner Anora, about a New York sex worker, which made a little over $20 million at the domestic box office. 'In Hollywood [that] is pathetic,' he says. 'It's worthless. And all the Academy Award winners were pathetic.' (The film was generally considered an indie success; it was made on a $6 million budget.) While Hollywood has long been a bastion of liberalism, there wasn't always such a stark divide between mainstream Hollywood and religious fare. But in today's political climate, the gap is widening. According to April 2024 research from Pew, 59 percent of Protestants align with the Republican Party compared to 38 percent who align with Democrats, and among white Evangelical Protestants, 85 percent lean Republican while only 14 percent lean Democrat. Christians of all faiths are more likely to be Republicans, where Jews, Muslims and anyone unaffiliated with a particular religion are more likely to be a Democrat. The large partisan split among white Evangelical Protestants in particular has grown steadily and significantly since the start of the Reagan era. And that gap has been reflected in available entertainment options. In the Facebook group 'Great American Family (GAC) Fan Community', users post every day about how the network is one of the only ones that represents their interests, values and politics. In a recent post, a fan wrote, 'GAC SEEMS TO HAVE SOME GREAT PROGRAMMING COMING UP FOR GOOD FRIDAY INTO EASTER. THANK YOU! I SAW SOME DISTURBING STUFF ON A MOVIE WITH HALLMARK OVER THE WEEKEND. ONLY TUNED IT IN WHEN IT WAS ALMOST OVER AND IT WAS 10 MINUTES OF AGENDA!' Her post was flooded with supportive comments. 'Stopped watching Hallmark movies when they cowered to the masses allowing same sex couples. Don't miss it and LOVE Great American Family!!,' another member of the group replied. Abbott uses and cultivates that sense of cultural alienation to market his content. Along with A Christmas Spark — where after two days on set Lopez's character has moved from a big-city office setup to charming small-town USA — GAM's offerings include the upcoming Home Sweet Christmas Wedding starring Cameron Bure and a slate of released Easter-themed productions including Forty-Seven Days with Jesus. Watching GAM is not only an escape from Hollywood, but also a signifier of your own values or politics. While spending your money or time with a Great American Media product, you're voting for something. It's not about artistic innovation or form, it's about sending a message. 'I think that 'Christian' is used by the media to downplay or to stereotype,' Abbott told Moms for America. 'It's reverse racism or however you want to define it. You get stereotyped and put in this box. And that's what they want to do, they want to put faith in a box and make it go away. And we will never let that happen.' — Tessa Berenson Rogers contributed to this report.
