Commercial radio seeks deal to podcast music

Commercial radio is close to signing a deal with music rights organisations allowing music to be included in podcasts.

Stations will be able to podcast up to 30 seconds of music tracks in the deal with PPL, which collects royalties on behalf of artists and record labels.

The one-year deal would cost commercial radio companies a total of around �100,000.

Commercial radio will also have to secure the composers’ and songwriters’ rights, which are administered by the Mechanical Copyright Protection Society and the Performing Right Society. This is likely to cost another �110,000, a total of �210,000.

The advanced stage of the negotiations was revealed in the minutes of the first board meeting of the Radio Centre, which represents the interests of commercial radio companies, which have been seen by MediaGuardian.co.uk.

It said the Radio Centre – the successor to the Commercial Radio Companies Association – had received a proposal from PPL for a “one-year blanket licence to enable Radio Centre members to offer podcasts containing 30 seconds of music tracks, excluding voiceover”.

However, at the time of the negotiations – the board meeting took place on October 5 last year – the Radio Centre still wanted to remove a proposed seven-day time limit on the podcast music rights.

The cost of buying the rights will be split between the various commercial radio companies, with a concession for speech-based stations which will not benefit as much from the relaxation of the rules.

On average, British radio stations pay between 8% and 12% of their overall revenues in licence fees. In 2005, Virgin paid around �1.1m for the rights to allow it to play music.