Now-playing information on TOKYO FM – 100% correct
Posted on Thursday, January 28th, 2010 at 10:00am. #
In the UK, there’s three words that fill people throughout radio with dread: “the PRS return”. UK radio stations have to reconcile and email their Selector logs off to the music rights holders (PRS and PPL), so that these bodies know what songs have been played and, potentially, share the money with the music artists. It’s a laborious process, since you need to know exactly was and wasn’t played, and include music from commercials and jingles.
But, TOKYO FM don’t email their Selector logs off every month to their equivalent of PRS or PPL. Instead, the music rights people in Japan have direct access to their now-playing information – right off the playout system.
The benefits of this are immense. Radio programmers must get the now-playing information correct before the song’s played – and therefore it drips through correctly to every other system and platform that the station’s available on. Record companies know exactly what’s played the minute TOKYO FM plays it. Nobody has to reconcile logs. Travel beds would be always exactly timed.
Not only does this method make the multi-platform product better for TOKYO FM, it also saves them money – because they get a discount for doing their music returns in this way.
Brilliant! Now, where’s PRS’s telephone number. I’ve an idea for them.
This is the last of four articles about TOKYO FM. I’m grateful for Nik Goodman for contacting TOKYO FM on my behalf, for Noriko at TOKYO FM for helping organise my meeting; and to the makers of Marmite for importing their splendid product into Japan, so I could give them each a little pot of England by way of thanks. Rather brilliantly, Daisuke has not only been enjoying his Marmite, he’s also tweeted about it, and taken a picture, which is the first time, I think, I’ve seen someone publicly enjoy a present I’ve given them.
On Monday, my next blog posting will move to Hong Kong: and a clever way of kickstarting a new radio platform.
- If you don’t want to miss any postings in this series, you can subscribe to this blog in Google Reader or via email.
- I’m in Asia, learning about radio around the world. Here’s where I am and when.
- Want me to present everything I’ve learnt to your teams in Europe when I’m back? Here’s how to get in touch.
When I explain the whole PRS log issue to people who don’t work in radio they are shocked that this process isn’t somehow automated. For any station where everything is scheduled and goes through a playout system this shouldn’t be a problem.
Of course, some stations with a lot of specialist programming still play stuff that is neither scheduled in advance or in the playout system (sometimes even off vinyl *gasp*).