Music licensing company suspends payment for closure period

Pubs with the music licence – which allows venues to play the majority of commercially available music – have been told they can defer payments and that late-payment surcharges will be temporarily suspended.

Customers will not have to pay for the licence during the period they are closed – temporarily or permanently.

PPL PRS has asked pubs closing permanently to contact them to apply for a pro rata refund of the unexpired period of the pub’s licence from the date that it permanently closed.  

If a customer has already paid their latest invoice for the licence, they can discuss the impact of coronavirus with PRS PPL at their next licence review. The company will amend operators’ accounts or refund them for the period of business closure.

Publicans who have not yet paid their latest invoice for the licence are asked to contact the licensing company to discuss options on 0800 0720 808.

New payment options include an extension of the number of payments that can be agreed in a plan or a deferred payment plan.

The company said on its website it had temporarily suspended outbound contact to all customers in affected sectors about licence reviews, until 30 April 2020 at the very earliest.

It said it was willing to extend this temporary suspension if the Government extends its current coronavirus measures, which have seen pubs ordered to close.

However, PPL PRS added that customers could also go ahead with the licence review process if they wished and changes in music usage relating to coronavirus would be taken into account.