AlBU

[James2002]

So l have a small hair salon and have always paid ppl and prs licence to play the radio as background music. This licence is now over £300 a year. I do understand royalties have a be paid but as a small business it's a lot. Or aibu

Get a tv and play one of the free music channels all day? Just pay tv licence then... a lot of GP surgeries in my area have done this because of the increasing prs costs

Have a blissfully quiet experience without ghastly Muzak?

My understanding is that to play music on the tv l would need tv plus music licence.

Bestzebbie not without the £300 license. I don't mind paying something but £300 seems excessive to me. Over the period of my 6yr lease that's £1800 just to play a radio. I'm currently looking at some of the other suggestions.

Ask a local musician if they’d like to come and practice?only half joking

There is tons of royalty free music and make playlist from it. We told PRS to bugger off after this and I even sent them the playlist. You won't get newest releases obviously but it's a background music.

James Have you told them that you think they have been billing you incorrectly?

The picture above has the up to date info. I started at the .gov.uk site and ended up here, same pdf as above. You need clarification on why they are overcharging you!

pplprs.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Tariff-background-music-in-hairdressers-and-beauty-salons.pdf

Often I think it all updated in January this year. PPL and PRS are no longer separate licenses, TheMusicLicense covers both!

Deezer?

You can buy royalty free CDs to play.

Yes they have joined forces, previously l was paying roughly £200 for the 2 licenses, now l have a bill of just over £300 with vat. They have correct details as in 5 chairs. I have tried to contact them by calling, email and pm to ask what's ok to play without licence but no luck. I just wondered what others thought as it does seem a lot of money. I am going to look for uncopyrighed music. It just seems a shame they have made it so expensive as l know a lot of hair salons are now looking at different options.

That's really odd as it says, quite clearly

NOTES:
If your hairdressing or beauty salon has 5 Chairs or less and you only use "traditional" radio or television broadcasts, you may be eligible for a concessionary licence fee of 50% of the lowest value Licence Fee per annum. and then says all BBC and independent radio stations

If it is an all in one license, as they say, then you should be paying £148.48 + VAT, or 50% of that!

Curious, yes, l think I'm going to have another try at contacting them. When l called it just said we are unable to take calls. Which is odd, l followed by email without any luck, so pm,d them and l did get a response to say that someone would call me but no luck there either.