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Reproduced from Independent 13 July, 1988
A possibility of future savings for the radio industry
When Kylie Minogue, the Australian soap star, topped the charts
recently, it was a tantalising glimpse of a lucrative future for
independent radio.
Every time Miss Minogue's "I should be so lucky" was aired,
station managers logged it for standard Performing Rights Society
(PRS) payments but, unlike 95% of all other records they play,
they had no parallel Phonographic Performance Limited (PPL)
charges. A saving of as much as £80 a play for some stations - or
more precisely, a saving of precious "needle time", the daily
nine-hour limit of record-play enforced by the PPL.
This is because Miss Minogue, an actress in Neighbours, made the
break into pop music courtesy of record label PWL, which, unlike
the vast majority of lables had not assigned record rights to
PPL. Radio air-play was "free".
Radio 1 which played Miss Minogue's song up to 180 times in a
10-week period while it was a hit, made a potential "saving" of
up to £15,000 in needle-time. It meant that 180 more records
could be played within the present restrictions than would have
been possible if the record had been assigned to PPL.
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