The Chancellor, George Osborne, delivered his Autumn Statement on 3 December 2014. The key announcements for the media sector are as follows.

The government will introduce a new corporation tax relief for making children's television programmes with effect from 1 April 2015. The relief will be at a rate of 25% on qualifying production expenditure. The government is also planning to consult with the television industry on a possible reduction of the minimum UK expenditure for high-end TV relief from 25% to 10% and a modernisation of the cultural test in line with the cultural test applied for film relief. There will also be a consultation early in 2015 on the introduction of an orchestra tax relief from 1 April 2016.

There has been a considerable increase in the reliefs available for cultural and creative sector activities in the last three or four years, see Practice notes, Film tax relief and Theatre tax relief.

For Practical Law's coverage of the 2014 Autumn Statement in all sectors, see 2014 Autumn Statement. For an update on the key announcements, see Legal update, 2014 Autumn Statement: business tax implications.

Source: HM Treasury: Autumn Statement 2014, paragraphs 1.174-1.176 and 2.94-2.96 and Autumn Statement 2014: HMRC Overview, 3.2-3.4, 3 December 2014.