PRS decision on allocation of BBC Radio revenue

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PRS decision on allocation of BBC Radio revenue

PRS has recently announced the results of its review of how revenue from broadcast performance across BBC radio stations is allocated in the payout to its members.

The board's intentioned review was supported by members of PRS who also wished to see changes to the policy.  The Broadcast Performance Review Group (BPRG) which is a committee of the PRS Board undertook a comprehensive process which took 18 months to complete. Two Academy Board members, David Ferguson and David Bedford, sit on the BPRG and represented the views of PRS writer members throughout the process.

Classical composers in particular are most likely to suffer a substantial loss under the new policy but the Academy lobbied unremittingly to defend the position of Radio 3 as a public service broadcaster and to ensure that there was limited erosion to the value of payments for broadcasts on Radio 3.

Sarah Rodgers, Chair of Classical Executive (The British Academy of Composers and Songwriters) comments: "To have our Radio 3 broadcast income almost halved is a bitter pill for composers of classical music, but the PRS has no choice other than to achieve the fairest distribution among all its members. The good thing is that we were able to influence the outcome positively, considerably improving the final position and ensuring that the voice of classical members is both heard and listened to."

As a result of the hard work by the Academy and its representatives on the PRS board, guiding principles of audience reach as well as audience size have been built into the calculations and the Radio 3 per minute rate has been set to a level which is more than 4 times higher than some worst case scenarios.   In some scenarios the Radio 3 per minute rate could have dropped to below £3.00 but will now be set at £9.28.  None the less, this is a very painful hit from the existing level of £17.61. The rate changes are to be phased in over a period of three years, which will make the reduction in payments more gradual.  Despite this, the timing is unfortunate for UK classical composers as the new structure will be backdated to the beginning of July prior to the beginning of The Proms, one of the primary opportunities to earn for this community.

Despite the fact that this is a painful outcome for classical composers, it has resulted in a transparent radio distribution policy for all PRS members and revenue from radio broadcasts is now equitably distributed.