Over 50 high-profile organisations across the music industry, many of them PRS Foundation Talent Development Partners, have today signed an open letter call to #HaltCutsToPRSF, urging PRS for Music to reverse a potentially devastating decision, voted in by its Member Council and announced by PRS CEO Andrea C. Martin, that it will make 60% cuts to the annual donation to PRS Foundation.
The group said in a collective statement:
“We respect the commitment displayed by PRS for Music through its 22 years of investment in emerging UK talent from the grassroots up. As the principal patron of the PRS Foundation, PRS for Music has contributed significantly towards making the UK music industry more accessible, more equitable, more creative and more profitable.
However, both PRS for Music’s track record and the music industry itself will be damaged for the foreseeable future if its unprecedented cutback of Foundation funding is enacted. We stand together to urge PRS for music to halt its proposed cuts to PRS Foundation and reverse a decision that could set the fragile post-Covid music economy back by decades.”
The Open Letter calls the proposed cutback a ‘rug pull’ that would be potentially devastating to the music ecosystem and further adds:
“As the UK's leading charitable funder of new music and talent development, last year alone, the PRS Foundation backed nearly 500 new music initiatives, enriching the prospects of thousands of emerging songwriters, composers, artists and other music creators. Each year, Foundation alumni are in evidence at awards ceremony nomination and winners lists - BRITS, MOBO, Mercury Prize, RPS, Grammys, AIM, Jazz FM and Ivors - and in the charts - Sam Fender, Dave, Yard Act, AJ Tracey, Glass Animals and Little Simz.
With 60% less investment, there will be 60% fewer successes. We do not believe a drastic rollback to 2000-levels of investment is fair, reasonable or even justifiable.”
With over 50 signatories to the Open Letter, it represents the collective voices of a large proportion of PRS Foundation’s Talent Development Partners and other key industry stakeholders, who stand united in a call for PRS For Music to reverse its controversial decision.
Paul Pacifico - CEO of Association of Independent Music said: “PRS Foundation funding has an incredible track record. It helps level the playing field for many under-represented and marginalised groups in music and has led to successful longer-term outcomes for those artists and creative entrepreneurs it has supported. It seems counter-intuitive that the PRS Members Council would choose to cut this funding so aggressively, at a time when recovery is so fragile, and the data at PRS must surely show a strong return on investment for PRS, and for UK songwriters and publishers.”
Yvette Griffith - Co-CEO and Executive Director of London’s Jazz re:freshed, a PRS Foundation Talent Development Partner said: “The future health of the UK music industry — and our existing hard-won improvements in representation for women and minorities — are under threat from an unprecedented 60% cut in grassroots resourcing announced by PRS for Music”
Susanna Eastburn MBE - CEO Sound and Music, a PRS Foundation Talent Development Partner said: “The number of composers and music creators I know who have received PRS Foundation support at a pivotal moment is literally countless. I find the decision by PRS hard to understand since this nurturing of the grass roots seems so essential for music’s future. PRS Foundation is also a vital catalyst for the ecology of support and empowerment of diverse music creators across the country, particularly for those who face barriers because of background, geography or lack of access.”
Orphy Robinson MBE - Vice chair Jazz Promotion Network & chair of IVORS Jazz committee said: “The announcement of 60% cuts to PRS Foundation funding has blindsided many of us in the industry. It has come as a complete surprise and it is hard to see the sense in these cuts being executed, other than the immediate saving it would make to PRS For Music expenditure. The fact that these changes have been announced when PRS revenues are looking so healthy is completely incongruous. The sector is still in in recovery following the pandemic and there is huge worry that these cuts could trigger a renewed downturn and actually reverse any progress made in diversity, equity and inclusion. PRS must listen and consult with the sector before making such drastic change, we call for a halt to these cuts!”
The Open Letter challenges PRS CEO Andrea C Martin’s statement Music Week in April 2022: "The popularity of PRS members’ music throughout 2021 drove a significant increase in revenues from Spotify, YouTube, and Apple Music ... up 42.5% since 2020, and 45.5% since 2019."
Additionally, Martin’s address to PRS members at the May 2022 AGM is highlighted: "In a year punctuated by continued uncertainty we achieved revenue growth of over twenty-two percent, returning to near 2019 levels ... I am pleased to say we had a very good year in 2021."
In reference to the same PRS statement, as rationale for the proposed cutbacks PRS stated; "[related] income has declined significantly over recent years, not least because of historically low interest rates"
This contrasts with the UK interest rates, which the Open Letter points out, at the time of writing are at their highest level in 13 years.
PRS Foundation’s positive impact is recognised, which the Open Letter points out is an investment that is too important to lose. For example, Foundation-supported programmes such as KEYCHANGE and POWER UP, which have driven much-needed diversity of place and people in the UK music industry, responding to grassroots groundswells as well as Government initiatives such as “Levelling Up”.
In terms of impact, the Open Letter highlights that 60% of the Foundation’s music creator and 67% of organisation grantees are based outside London; 63% of creator grantees are women, mixed gender groups and gender minorities; nearly half are from ethnic minorities; 15% identify as Disabled; and over a quarter identify as LGBTQIA+.
The Open Letter signatories applaud the adoption of a "growth mindset" by PRS and in doing so urges PRS to value the needs of the sector and look at alternative means of increasing income, other than pulling the rug from under its much loved and much relied on PRS Foundation.
The PRS CEO is again quoted in the Open Letter from her recent AGM address; “we must be brilliant at the basics", before arguing that for this to happen, a fully-funded PRS Foundation is essential.
The Open Letter concludes with a quote from The Guardian’s recent coverage of the story via Jess Partridge’s comment “the number of people who can afford to make music is going to be dramatically reduced, (we will not have) an industry in which people from different backgrounds are empowered to participate."
Ammo Talwar MBE - Organiser of the Open Letter, CEO of Punch Records, a PRS Foundation Talent Development Partner said: “We believe PRS for Music should urgently look again at alternatives before signing off on this retrograde decision. The PRS Foundation has been more agile than ever before, creating programmes at pace to the ever-changing needs of the music industry. It delivers exceptional value to creators, place and the broader levelling up agenda, and has that independent rigour that amplifies new voices into the sector. The more creators supported by PRS Foundation, the more potential future PRS Members, a huge value commercial opportunity.”
#HaltCutsToPRSF OPEN LETTER IS SIGNED BY:
Charisse Beaumont - Black Lives in Music (London)
Michael Bonner - Moving on Music (Belfast)
Nick Brealey - Britten Sinfonia (Cambridge)
Dr Greg Caffrey - Hard Rain Ensemble (Belfast)
Annabella Coldrick - Music Managers Forum (UK)
Graham Davis - IVORS Academy (UK)
Hamish Dunbar - OTO projects (London)
Susana Eastburn - Sound & Music (London)
Polly Eldridge - Sound UK (Bristol)
Lizzy Ellis - Saffron (Bristol)
Tony Ereira - Come Play With Me (Leeds)
Richard Foote - b Music (Birmingham)
Natalia Franklin - Non Classical (London)
Amy Frenchum - Future Bubblers/Brownswood Records (London)
David Gaydon - Cheltenham Festivals
Chloe Gebhardt - LIMF Academy (Liverpool)
Dominic Gray - Opera North (Leeds)
Yvette Griffith - Jazz re:freshed (London)
Matt Griffiths - Youth Music (UK)
Spike Griffiths - Forte Project (Wales)
John Harris - Red Note Ensemble (Scotland)
Charlene Hegarty - Oh Yeah Ireland (Ireland)
Janine Irons - Tomorrow's Warriors (London)
Andy Jones - Focus Wales (Wales)
David Jones - Serious (London)
Baby J - Baby People (Derby)
Deborah Keyser - Music Centre Wales (Wales)
Keranjeet Kaur - South Asian Arts (Leeds)
Mark Kass - The Jazz Centre (London)
Pasco Kevlin - Norwich Arts Centre (Norwich)
Debra King - Brighter Sounds (Manchester)
Michael Lambert - Wide CIC (Edinburgh)
David Martin - Featured Artists Coalition (UK)
Steve Mead - Jazz Festival (Manchester)
Carien Meijer - Drake Music (London)
Pamela McCormick - UD Music (London) Graham McKenzie - HCMF (Huddersfield)
Claire Moran - Cryptic (Glasgow)
Sheryl Nwosu - Black Music Coalition
Paul Pacifico - Association of Independent Music (UK)
Crispin Parry - British Underground (London)
Owen Parry - Bristol Beacon (Bristol)
Malaki Patterson - The Music Works (Gloucester)
Abigail Pogson - Sage (Newcastle)
Fiona Robinson - Sound (North East Scotland)
Mick Ross - Generator (Newcastle)
Orphy Robinson & Ros Rigby - Jazz Promotion Network (London)
Jo Ross - Oxford Contemporary Music (Oxford)
Thursa Sanderson - Drake Music Scotland
Adam Szabo - Manchester Collective (Manchester)
Ammo Talwar - Punch Records (Birmingham) JJ Tatten - The Warren (Hull)
Matt Taylor -Music Producers Guild (UK)
Cleveland Watkiss - Freedom: Art of Improvisation (London)
Mark Williams - HeartnSoul (London)
Kate Wilson - Britten Pears Arts (Suffolk)
