TV royalties

We pay royalties for the use of our members' music on TV through licensing agreements with broadcasters, including the BBC, Sky, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5.

How we calculate

To track what’s played and when, we use two methods:

• Pay-per-play
• Representative samples

For both, the value of each play is dependent on the annual revenue received from each channel, the amount of music being played on each channel for the year and the length of time your work is used for. 

Time of day weighting

There are different royalty rates depending on the time of day music is broadcast, "Non peak" (midnight to 4pm), "Low peak" (4pm to 6pm and 11pm to midnight) and "High peak" (6pm to 11pm).

TV streaming platforms

Unlike traditional broadcast channels, there are too many variables for us to be able to accurately calculate rates for TV streaming platforms. Before paying out, services like Netflix and Amazon Prime consider the popularity of a programme, money generated from subscribers during that period and the amount of music used across all programmes during the same period. Any guide rates provided by PRS would therefore be misleading.

TV rate checker

Check the per-minute royalty rates that apply to distributions from TV broadcasters.