[cma-l] PPL & PRS for Music Joint Licence for Community Radio

[Phil Edmonds]

At the risk of repeating my occasional previous contributions on this 
topic...


Our PRS / PPL royalties being based on a percentage of commercial income 
I think is a pretty fair way of doing things. Say I sell an a few advert 
plays and a programme sponsorship to the local curry house for a couple 
of hundred quid. A small percent of this income going to music royalties 
sounds fine to me - I can just factor this into the 'price' set the same 
way as I'd factor in sales commissions or other related costs.

As Alex has highlighted the problem is the 'minimum fee' regime, if you 
only have a small amount of commercial activity you can end up paying 
more when calculated on a 'percent of commercial income' basis than 
another station who has more commercial income.

I'd suggest what we should be fighting for is that this 'minimum fee' is 
set at a level which means most stations are paying something closer to 
the agreed percentage of commercial revenue level.

Every Community Radio station has to declare their 'Advertising and 
Sponsorship' revenue to Ofcom in their Annual Report.

I'd argue that the minimum fee should be based on the sector average for 
the previous year as declared to Ofcom.

This would mean that the lower commercial income stations would pay a 
fairer minimum fee and those more successful in commercial activities 
would pay more than the minimum, but as these extra payments will be 
coming from income received from their commercial activities it's then 
just a fairly straightforward case of ensuring that the x% of any sales 
income is assigned to the "current liabilities" heading and ensuring you 
don't spend it on something else!

I don't think Ofcom have published such average figures for a few years. 
While I appreciate the full blown 'Community Radio Sector report' they 
used to publish takes more resources than they currently have, I'd 
suggest the CMA should push for a smaller 'summary of finances' report 
to be produced by Ofcom. This would take a significantly smaller amount 
of Ofcom staff time to produce and would be very helpful to indicate the 
"micro" nature of the community radio sector to both the music royalty 
bodies and other parties such as Radio Centre / Commercial Radio who I 
still think see community radio as more as competition rather than the 
compliment that we probably are.

Phil.

On 12/12/2016 16:52, Canalside's The Thread wrote:
> Oh Dear oh Dear ---- we have all been sucked into a discussion again
> looking at the situation from the wrong end of the drain-spout.
>
>
>
> It’s all gobbledy gook I tell you              ‘’Bah Humbug !’’
>       and         all unnecessary, and signing on the dotted line will
> open up a can of worms and you’ll get your stove pipe Hat nailed on
> somewhere further down the line. Beware the Ides of March (Vehicle)
>
>
>
> I shall not be signing up to whatever is coming out of HQ, and therefore
> we’ll be having our bottoms spanked, but alas, as always, we shall be
> paying the minimum/average fee as we have always done …….. this is the
> fee of course that appears to be another golden opportunity missed where
> this could have been put to bed once and for all. Consultation = no
> process of going through the motions, ticking the boxes, paying
> lipservice = yes                           We shall be playing Rod
> Stewart and the Arctic Monkeys because we’ve paid for the music already.
> We’ve paid for ALL our music.
>
> If we want a discussion on Piracy, then that’s a different matter.
>
>
>
> There’ll be no reporting, as just like the last 10 years there’s nowt to
> report, as zero is zero and that will not change. Furthermore, whether
> we have a contra deal with the local Milkman or a barter agreement with
> the window cleaner is no business of Elton John. They might be cleaning
> the windows and delivering the eggs on the point of fact that they
> happen to like what we do for the Community and thanking them with a
> little mention is the polite thing to do. Oh I forgot, that’s why they
> do support us.
>
>
>
> My suggestion to PRS/PPL would be tekk the lolly £££ and run.
>
>
>
> We’d better start practising the spiel ……………… ‘’Your Honour, I was
> inside the closet minding my own business’’                   there’s
> another 2p for Pluto Shervington + 2p for 10cc (Good Morning Judge)
> …………………. The Pearls – Guilty
>