I reckon a major opportunity was missed when the new Licensing Act came in. Local Authorities collect off every licensed outlet; our Social Club, for instance, even has to pay extra for the privilege of putting on a (non profit-making) Panto once a year so needs a licence for dramatic performance. The licence we pay for music (of all kinds - juke-box, TV, discos, live bands etc) is not exactly peanuts but in the general scheme of things is not excessive. I wouldn't have thought many pubs and clubs have no music licence because they feel the charge is onerous. Now, what if the (music) licence had included a PRS contribution, collected by Councils on their behalf?   You'd have comprehensive coverage for PRS purposes, and consequently both a greater sum collected for distribution to members and a lower cost per venue.

As things stand there seems to be a temptation for landlords to expect (or demand) the full PRS cost to them from the most readily identifiable coherent group using their premises for music (Folk Club or regular session eg) when they may well be promoting live musical events themselves on other nights, and indeed playing recorded music all the time otherwise.

Just to clear up one other point - about the "big" players making hay at the expense of us minnows. I don't get a lot from PRS but what I do receive does include an appreciable chunk for karaoke, juke-boxes etc even though there is no way any of my songs would ever feature.

PRS could only ever achieve absolutely fair and accurate distribution
if every performance of every song was noted down and that is patently impossible. I am sure the technology exists for (say) every juke-box play to be collected automatically and were that to happen (a bit like public lending right) that part of the quarterly distribution would no longer be shared out across the membership as a whole.

The PRS does exist for its members and as Tom Bliss has pointed out if we are unhappy with its activities we should use whatever forums are available to us to try and change its ways.

Henry