I vividly remember my meetings, as head of radio at PBS during the mid-80s, with Michael Hudson from the Performing Rights Society to discuss the perennial problem of royalties and rights. I vividly remember my meetings, as head of radio at PBS during the mid-80s, with Michael Hudson from the Performing Rights Society to discuss the perennial problem of royalties and rights.I vividly remember my meetings, as head of radio at PBS during the mid-80s, with Michael Hudson from the Performing Rights Society to discuss the perennial problem of royalties and rights. I vividly remember my meetings, as head of radio at PBS during the mid-80s, with Michael Hudson from the Performing Rights Society to discuss the perennial problem of royalties and rights. The meetings, arranged by the PRS representatives in Malta, were meant to finally bring our stations, then the only local ones on the air, to play ball after years of neglect and utter disrespect towards the people who, after all, provided – as they still do today – the music that we played. And there was a lot of it.

They were not easy meetings. Michael Hudson was a shrewd operator whose experience in the field was notable. He was aware, however, of the unique situation that occurred on a small island where professional mediocrity was, and sadly still is to an extent, tolerated as a way of avoiding paying one’s dues. I knew I did not have a leg to stand on and immediately put our cards on the table. We wanted to make a new start, I admitted, and go back to Rediffusion times, when royalties were paid on an annual basis as per the returns from DJs and programme presenters.

In having held my hands up, I was hoping to disarm the PRS man and so get a more generous deal in the end. It more or less succeeded. From then on, PBS started paying a hefty annual sum to make up for the music it played on its then three radio stations, but market realities regarding territorial size and advertising revenue helped in no small way in keeping the figure at a still quite reasonable amount.

I assume PBS are still being the professionals that we became at the time and that the royalties, much of which come back to a good number of Maltese composers and authors, are still being paid. There was initially a lot of resistance on the part of a few of my DJs and presenters, some of them even pathetically protesting they had no time to fill in the prescribed forms! I could only hit back by insisting that only those who returned the duly completed forms would eventually be paid by the station. The protests fizzled out almost immediately, even though we paid peanuts at the time.

The Maltese radio scene has changed dramatically since then. The air is replete with radio signals from all over the two islands and radio happily continues to enjoy a popularity not often credited to what is now considered to be an “old” medium. Pluralism certainly did the trick for a considerable number of new broadcasters, station owners and technical people at both national and community levels. As a result, musical output has multiplied, but how many of the stations are licensed, are registered for playing music and, in the process, pay for the right to play it?

For those who continue to resist, the day of reckoning in this regard may be much sooner than some may think. Maltese radio cannot expect to have its cake and eat it. While it is true that one of the key problems in modern society is that there is a culture of expecting music to be free, a notion inculcated into a whole new generation, there is no escaping the fact that legally, morally and professionally, Maltese broadcasters are bound to give the creators of the huge amount of music they play every single day of the year, their fair due.

PRS for Music is, courtesy of another emissary in this new electronic epoch, rightly seeing to it that a fair deal is struck on behalf of its members, from the Elton Johns and Paul McCartneys to various Maltese composers and authors. Michael Pursey has been to the island on such a mission, starting with what is expected to grow into a monthly meeting with the local industry.

Rather than raising fears that this could mean the imposition of more financial burdens on local broadcasters, this new PRS initiative should add a touch of professional realism. As it did with PBS so many years ago, it should give Maltese radio stations and their managers a new sense of being in that they recognise the rights of others as much as they do their own.

As with the proper use of the national language in their programmes, radio stations have to understand that the onus is on them to be seen and treated as professional players on the entertainment and information stage. Technology today makes it a lot easier to gather and supply data than when DJs and presenters had to complete their PRS forms using ballpoint pens, whenever these survived the usual pilfering from their desks, after transmission.

Of course, music is not just a radio thing. There are TV stations, hotels, restaurants, dance clubs and discos, supermarkets, fashion chains, websites and sundry other sources – even dancing fountains! – playing music, the work of writers, publishers and musicians who no doubt deserve to receive their royalties as much as those who, one way or another, make a profit out of it by exploiting its universal attraction and public usefulness.

It should be a day of reckoning that rights a wrong, that distinguishes the man from the kid, the professional from the amateur, excellence from mediocrity. It should be regarded as an opportunity rather than an encumbrance.

I know, I have been and continue to be on both sides of the fence.