Open letter to BBC Radio Cymru

Published: 12/12/11

Annwyl Radio Cymru,

As a recording company and publishing company, we support the Welsh musicians’ campaign to raise the ‘per minuet’ rate paid by PRS for musical works played on Radio Cymru. We therefore kindly ask you to respect our request not to play any track from the Sain label, nor any track from our sub-labels Crai, Rasal, Copa, Gwymon, Tryfan and Slic, nor any track from the labels that are part of Sain’s archive, namely, Gwynfryn, Cambrian and Welsh Teldisc, between December 19th and 21st 2011.

The BBC Trustees have a statutory responsibility for the way the BBC spends the public broadcast licence fund. We do not believe that the BBC is exercising this responsibility by presenting the PRS with a blanket payment for the right to broadcast musical works. The BBC should realise that the way PRS apportions this blanket payment for works played on Radio Cymru (approx £0.50 per min) is damaging to the music industry in Wales, demeans the music, and is certain to lead to a significant reduction in the production of new Welsh musical works in the future, which is also in turn, damaging to BBC Wales.
We ask therefore, that you support Welsh music, and respect the Welsh musicians’ request, and use your significant influence on PRS to re-examine the inconsistencies of their royalty distribution systems, and apportion your blanket payment in a fairer way.

Yn gywir,

Dafydd M Roberts
Prif Weithredwr/Chief Executive