PRS has actually always paid royalties for every performance of every work on all terrestrial national TV and radio services. But because of the sheer volume of information coming in from the local and satellite services, we have adopted a sampling system for these other broadcasters. It is a system that is common to all collecting societies and that enables us to take a snapshot of music use and pay out based on that.
From April 2006, PRS is announcing a significant step forward in its ultimate goal of pay per play. From the April distribution, EVERY broadcast of EVERY work on EVERY BBC local radio station will also receive a royalty.
It’s a significant step, because to do this we are dependent on the quality and timeliness of the BBC reporting to us. It also means that our royalty distribution for BBC local radio will suddenly leap from processing 39,000 sampled performances to processing 400,000 actual performances each month.
We’re confident of getting both the reporting and the processing right but, to be absolutely sure of reaching our target, we’ll be prioritising our processing work based on the potential value of each work broadcast. So, bear with us if in this first attempt a small proportion of low value performances don’t make it into the April distribution. They won’t be lost - we’ll carry them forward to the next distribution in July.
The key points of the April distribution changes are as follows:
- As of 1 October 2005, all broadcasts of PRS members’ works on any BBC local radio station will be due a royalty
The royalty pot will remain the same but will be shared between more performances, so each individual broadcast will get less money
- But far more broadcasts (about 10 times more, in fact) will feature in distributions, to give a fairer and more accurate payment
- Works that do not receive many broadcasts are now much more likely to feature in a distribution, as they will not have ‘missed’ the sample
- For a work that receives many broadcasts the total amount of royalties paid is likely to be similar; yet will still provide a fairer and more accurate representation of performances.
For example:
Previously - A work with 10 sampled performances that was due a rate of £3.50, would be due £35 in royalties
Now - If the same work actually picked up 97 broadcasts at a new rate of £0.35, this would equal £33.95 in royalties. If it picked up 105 broadcasts, that would be £36.75.
And there’s more good news. Since we use BBC local radio data in distributing other sources of royalties (jukebox and karaoke, for example), works with few broadcasts on BBC local radio are now more much likely to feature in these distributions too.
We welcome your feedback on the distribution improvements and we are planning more for the future.
www.prs.co.uk/thisdistribution
This article originally appeared in M19, published March 2006.