For the first time in Irish broadcasting history private companies will be able to apply for licence fee revenue under a scheme unveiled yesterday by the Broadcasting Commission of Ireland (BCI).

The Sound and Vision scheme allows public and private broadcasters to apply for funds to make programming dealing with Irish culture, heritage and adult literacy.

While there is nothing preventing RTÉ from applying for the funds, other commercial broadcasters like TV3, Today FM, NewsTalk 106 or Setanta Sports could conceivably apply.

Some 5 per cent of the licence fee revenue is being used to fund the scheme. This should translate into about €8 million a year. The last Minister for Communications, Dermot Ahern, introduced the idea of earmarking 5 per cent of the licence fee for a special broadcasting fund.

While this idea was opposed by some of his department officials, the Minister said it was important to give commercial broadcasters an opportunity to avail of licence fee funds once they spent the money on programming in certain key areas.

Since making the original announcement there have been some delays in getting the scheme off the ground. For example it took some time to get EU approval for the scheme.

The BCI is administering the scheme and yesterday chief executive Michael O'Keeffe said he was delighted to introduce the scheme. "We have been working closely with the industry over the last number of months in anticipation of European approval and we now look forward to strengthening those relationships and seeing the production of new, innovative and high quality programming for Irish viewers and listeners".

He said funding would be provided in the form of a grant of up to 95 per cent of production costs. The scheme will be open to applicants until December 16th. Application forms and a guide for applicants are available on the BCI website at www.bci.ie.