A couple of months ago I was made a Full Member of PRS (the Performing Writes Sociecty) and as this entitled me to attend the Annual General Meeting I thought I would go and see what it was all about. This was also the first one that they had held at their headquarters near Goodge Street. So in I went - lined up in the queue, got my pass and headed up to the 5th floor. There were loads of people there - all seemed to be about double my age and I knew no one. So I did my best to mingle but its not something I excel at. Thank god I bumped into an old family friend - Simon Darlow. Simon is a friend of my Dads who wrote “Video killed the radio star” among other hits. He was a bit jumpy as he was nominated for the PRS board which was one of the things I now was eligible to vote on. Sadly he missed out by one vote but the whole process was an interesting insight into the rather incestuous voting system that seems to keep the PRS board furnished with major publishers/record company bosses (who, it has to be mentioned, none of which look particularly underfed).
Mingling done we all proceeded into a conference room for a couple of speeches from the current PRS chairman, some fella from Earnst & Young to tell us about the audit (might nip out for a cheeky fag for this bit next year), an assualt of buzzwords and graphs from the MD and then a chance to fire off some questions to the board. At first the questions all seemed rather polite - but throughout the whole meeting dissidence had been brewing - a number of publishers were particularly unhappy at the new way daytime tv royalties were to be distributed. But what was this? Was my hand actually pointing to the ceiling? Was I actually going to stand up in front of 500 odd stangers and speak? Well, yes, my thinking thus: I knew none of these people and if I was going to make any new aquaintances without sticking to Simon like a limpet, a pertinent and gently critical question might be a good talking point for people to come up and talk to me during the post AGM drinkathon (free booze!). So up I got and asked the board why the website was not quite up to scratch.
Ah…the PRS website. For years its been an unworkable mess with a searchable database that looks like it was built in the sixties. I gave up on it - I could never find my tunes - found the search results difficult to work with (the same search query would bring back an entirely different set of apparently random results) and not that helpful anyway if you did have the bit of luck required to find what you needed. The one thing I wanted it to do - tell me how much my next cheque was - was completely missing from the site. So when I recieved an email about 6 months ago proudly telling me that the entire web-application had undergone a complete refit I logged in thinking that finally I would be able to find all this out - search my tunes - see how much they had made - all the useful stuff that a writer might want. Sadly all the backend stuff was the same. They had merely put a rather glitzy front end design and not even touched the database applications that I moan about above.
So my question was really along the lines of why has so much money been spent on the graphic design of the website, when in effect the usefulness of the site remains the same - ie a bit lame. To my surprise, Steve Porter (MD) cut in to ask if he could personally field this question. He was disappointed as the new web-design had cost in excess of a million quid and that response from the focus groups had been good.
As you may or may not know I used to ply a trade as a web-designer (still do in fact) and that for a front-end app like the one they are using - they have been robbed. For what the website can do I would have probably offered them a quote of about 10k and had it done in 6-8 weeks. For the website I talk about above it would probably be nearer 100K but still - a hell of a lot cheaper than the bunch of gypsies that have helped them put this thing together. I may become PRS’s worst nightmare - there first writer member who not only knows how to use a website - but also a member who could see their web-application for the rather shady shonky thing that it actually is. In short we are talking style not substance - its the type of web-design, as a nerd, I loathe and although I am certain the web-development team are well meaning - its clear their web policy, although pleased with itself, is in disarray. The bottom line is that the money is being wasted on fancy icing and cherries. The cake itself is rotten.
Anyway the ruse worked rather well and at the drinks I had no end of people introducing themselves to me and giving their opinion on what I had said. I met lots of interesting people, Monty Norman, the guy who wrote the James Bond theme definately my highlight and then took my leave with a whole wallet full of cards, mingled out but newly indoctrinated into the songwriters guild.
