LONDON – 30^th NOVEMBER 2006 – THE HOUSE OF COMMONS

David Lammy MP – the Minister for Culture is welcoming 150 dignitaries from the worlds of Music, Education and Government today for the launch of a new service called PLAYTIME.

For the very first time, the entire music industries repertoire is now available online to all educational establishments throughout the UK for the purposes of assisting with students education. The event is further supported by live performances from Katie Melua and All Angels

Katie, the UK’s best selling UK female artist for the last two years, needs no introduction. Her song writing and performing talent are immense. All Angels are one of the favourites for the Christmas No.1 single. The group comprises four girls aged 16 and 17 who bring a fresh new sound and bright new look to classical crossover music, with repertoire spanning classical, choral, opera and pop. They are a brilliantly talented group.

PLAYTIME is the only online music service that enables access to the entire music industry’s repertoire for the purposes of assisting teachers and pupils with their education.

PLAYTIME is a digital online version of the unique, world-famous multi-million track Phil Swern Music Collection. The service will be made available securely and legally to any school, college or university in the UK. The music has been digitized, the technology developed, the service tested and soft launched. It is ready for immediate roll out and formal launch.

The Phil Swern Collection is the result of a lifetime of collecting and includes a vinyl or CD copy of every UK Top 40 hit since the charts began in November 1952 the US Hits 100 and further substantial quantities of Pop, Jazz, Country, Film Soundtracks, Stage Shows, Classical and Comedy music sections. It is updated with new repertoire daily.

This remarkable vinyl and CD archive is probably the most complete collection of its kind anywhere in the world.  Broadchart have specialised in sourcing and delivering music online since 1995 and are now delighted to launch PLAYTIME.

The first reaction is that PLAYTIME is for the music department. However, St Birinus Boys School in Didcot, who have been trialing the service for a few months, found that PLAYTIME could be used in many other ways.

A class of 12 year olds were being taught keyboard, mouse and internet searching skills in an IT lesson. The teacher explained the objective and gave them the task of searching, finding and listening to a track from Artic Monkeys. Now that’s a cool IT lesson.

Other uses were listening to music from different parts of the world in a Geography lesson, playing music from different time periods in a History lesson…..and it’s pretty good supporting the students and teachers in the music lessons.

In higher education, Universities and Colleges use the service for many reasons and South Down College, who have also be testing the service for the higher education, have streamed over 4,500 tracks in the last 4 weeks. Without PLAYTIME these students would never have been able to access this quantity of repertoire with the ease, simplicity and cost effectiveness they could with this new service.

The company that has brought this service to schools is Broadchart Limited whose Directors include Andy Hill CEO and Phil Swern Director of Music and Trudie Myerscough-Harris – Director - PLAYTIME Marketing.

QUOTATIONS

“PLAYTIME is a rich and exciting resource that will benefit young people. All young people will relish the chance to make use of this amazing range of songs across many decades  within music lessons and across the wider curriculum”

“Making links between the music industry and music education is something I feel passionately about. I am pleased to support PLAYTIME as a great example of this in practice.” – David Lammy – Culture Minister

“I know this music collection and it is remarkable and comprehensive. To make this available to all students in the UK of all ages will deliver untold benefits. I would encourage government, educational establishments and the business community to support this worthwhile and unique opportunity” - Andrew Lloyd Webber

“PLAYTIME offers teachers a service which they can’t get anywhere else. There is nothing else quite like it. The good thing is that PLAYTIME can be used across the whole curriculum” - Leonora Davies MBE - Chair of the Music Education Council (MEC) and member of the Music Manifesto’s Steering Group.

“It’s absolutely fantastic. We were looking for some really obscure songs and they had them. PLAYTIME really enhances the library and the music staff think it’s a brilliant resource for everyone to use”- Sarah Reed - Learning Centre - South Downs College

“We have been testing the service and we found it to be fast, simple to use. This is important as the many uses and classes we use the service require student of all ages an capabilities to be able to use and enjoy this incredible resource” – Chris Bryan – Headmaster – St Birinus Boys School.

“It has taken a long time to launch the service and we have had tremendous support from the record companies and music publishers. The point that took the time to agree was not the principle of the service, as this was never questioned, but the price payable to the copyright owners for use of their property.

The debate was to ensure people did not consider music to be free whilst ensuring that all children and teachers have access to this unique resource at a substantial discount. It took time and we achieved a very good price versus that charged to commercial organisations and the record companies and music publishers should be thanked for this understanding.

All we ask of the teachers is that they take a little time to explain to their students the reason for copyrights, explain that music is not free and the effects on peoples lives when they download music from illegal music sites. Similarly, we would ask the politicians to help us protect copyrights and extent the term for the sound recording. It is only through the revenues that are generated from these copyrights that allow services like PLAYTIME to be offered to education. A typical school can have unlimited access to this unique resource for less than the price of a CD per week. The stipulation is that the service is for education not recreation” – Andy Hill – CEO – Broadchart Limited

“This collection has been a life time obsession for me and to see it used in schools across the country will give me enormous pleasure.  I’m sure students and teachers alike will discover and enjoy music that they would never find and will have it available immediately at their fingertips. It is also the vision and technology of my colleagues at Broadchart that will provide an unrivalled resource to the children of this country and will help secure the future of our music industry” – Phil Swern – Direct or Music – Broadchart Limited

“PLAYTIME is an amazing resource for schools. Good quality, broad ranging material that can be easily accessed, will stimulate and support learning whatever the age and phase of students and their teachers! The addition of suggestions for listening and other activities drawn from particular pieces is especially valuable.

Sarah Hennessy - Chair of National Association of Music Educators

FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT

ANDY HILL                                                   TRUDIE MYERSCOUGH-HARRIS
BROADCHART LIMITED                            BROADCHART LIMITED
TEL NO: 020 7637 8800                               MOBILE: 07801 459 202