Examination of Witnesses (Questions 120-126)
MR DARREN
HENLEY, MR
SIMON COOPER,
MS LISA
KERR AND
MR KEVIN
STEWART
27 FEBRUARY 2007
Q120 Mr Evans: You used to have a
lady who listened to it in New York; so you have stopped that
now, have you?
Mr Henley: One of the things we
did with the new licence agreements with PPL and PRS is we had
to ensure that we limited all listening to the UK only, so we
have done that.
Mr Cooper: There are a lot of
angry MEPs.
Mr Stewart: The MEP for Lowestoft
and that general area, I got a note from his office in Brussels,
saying "That's how we kept in contact with our constituency,
by listening to the news on The Beach," so we had to give
him a sneaky work-around.
Q121 Mr Evans: Hold on now; why has
this happened? Now and again you are listening to a BBC station
and they say, "Oh, we've just had an e-mail from somebody
living in Miami," or somewhere?
Mr Henley: The BBC are paying
for rights to broadcast in those territories.
Q122 Mr Evans: It is simply because
of those rights, is it, and it is so expensive that the commercial
chaps cannot afford it?
Ms Kerr: Yes.
Mr Henley: Yes.
Mr Stewart: We cannot afford it.
Mr Cooper: Clear and simple.
Q123 Mr Evans: Do you think that
would be a public service, if you were able to access at least
some funds, which would allow you for British people living abroad,
a lot of ex-pats and a lot of holiday-makers, we ourselves if
we were going abroad and wanted to access that?
Ms Kerr: I think one of the difficulties
is that we make our money by people who are surveyed as listeners
in the UK and advertisers buy those listeners, they do not buy
overseas listeners. I think maybe a really interesting question
to ask is, is it a good use of public money to be buying music
rights to broadcast Radio 2 to Miami?
Mr Stewart: There are obviously
downloads which get round that, so, for example, if you are a
listener to most of our stations, I am sure you could download
the latest news bulletins, and what have you; you just cannot
listen in a linear way to the broadcast.
Ms Kerr: Rights is a big challenge
for the industry. Reaching the same number of people through three
platforms is more expensive than reaching them through one platform.
Q124 Mr Evans: If you go through
something like SHOUTcast.com, you can get a list of radio stations
there. Are you saying that they are all paying funds to whichever
country they are in to be able to do their copyrights, or do you
think that it is not governed, or policed, in other parts of the
world as it would be policed here?
Ms Kerr: Different countries police
to a different level. The UK polices firmly. We have had a great
number of complaints but our stations do have to limit their internet
listening to UK ISPs.
Q125 Mr Evans: Is there a way round
that?
Ms Kerr: Not a legal one.
Q126 Mr Evans: But there is a way
round; people are doing it, are they? People who know how to do
it are doing it?
Mr Stewart: I could not possibly
comment.
Chairman: Particularly on that note,
I do not think we have any more questions. Thank you very much.
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