Live radio

[J Pearce]

Hi folks. Had a request come in that I think I know the answer for, but wanted to consult the wider wisdom.

 

Live radio as house music - if the venue is already PRS/PPL licensed, am I ok to use live radio as house music? It'd be incidental music for PRS purposes.

 

Next - how do I then do the PRS return? Keep tabs on what the radio station played and return that, or just return that we played Radio 2 from 7pm to 7.30pm on the nth of month?

[GR1]

Businesses that I'm a supplier to have radio playing in their workshops. They have to pay a commercial TV licence for that to be legal. The cost is dependant on the number of employees. A company with about 40 employees pays over £1K per annum for their staff to legally listen to any radio station. My guess is that this would fall into this licencing regime rather than PRs because PRS doesn't take account of the fact that it is a broadcast but I could be wrong. Contact PRS or TV licencing for accurate info.

[Jivemaster]

Probably a very expensive suggestion, you would be playing tracks and original content with their own rights owners via another rights owner. If it's something important to artistic integrity then something specially created would perhaps be better. Add to that the inconvenience of news, traffic and channel advertising that may mess with content.

 

I'd definitely look for something created as part of your show than something borrowed from elsewhere.

 

You'd probably want the track to have a finish as you want to start the performance, the track ends in broadcast are not at specific times so you's likely have to fudge something to get the curtain up on time.

[Junior8]

It's all here https://www.radiocentre.org/files/faq.pdf. You would need an additional licence I think