The Stage

Radio Drama Agreement reached after years of talks

Published Tuesday 3 January 2006 at 12:40 by Liz Thomas

After more than four years of negotiations, the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain and the BBC have signed a new Radio Drama Agreement.

The updated deal has been made necessary by rapid developments in technology, such as internet streaming, and follows the rise in the number of digital stations, which are often reliant on repeat programming. This in turn has raised questions over ownership of rights and fee rates.

The Guild’s radio committee chair Alan Drury said: “The previous agreement was for a pre-digital world. As developments such as internet streaming and BBC7 occurred, they were dealt with by further agreements and licences. The result was Jarndycian complexity. All the extras are now part of the new agreement and attract an increased fee.”

There have been two increases in rates, an annual one to account for inflation and an additional one where radio writers will now receive 10% of the original fee for a single transmission. This is to cover new usage that did not exist when the previous contract was negotiated, including repeats on BBC7 and the Corporation’s audio-on-demand service Listen Again.

The deal also means that the BBC has accepted that it has no claim on subsidiary rights. This is important as the debate over the exploitation of scripts in other media subsequent to initial transmission, such as simultaneous webcasting, podcasting or delivery on mobile phones, has become increasingly contentious as technology develops in the broadcasting industry. The Corporation has conceded it has no rights to further use in media unconnected with broadcasting and the rights for TV and audio books are now tightly defined.

Under the agreement a radio forum will be set up, which will meet twice yearly to deal with new developments in radio and any fine-tuning the new agreement needs.

Drury added: “Decision-making times over scripts have also been shortened. This is important because otherwise the script can’t be used elsewhere and in other media while the BBC makes its mind up. For radio, it [the agreement] has been an epic process.”

The Guild will be issuing a lay person’s guide to the agreement, which also covers members of The Society of Authors and the Personal Managers’ Association, in the next few months. For more details visit www.writersguild.org.uk