PPL revolution enters final phase: licensing operations reshuffled at collecting society in bid to shore up service and revenues.(Companies)

Fran Nevrkla is putting the finishing touches to his PPL revolution by amalgamating PPL and VPL's licensing operations.

The move, which aims to make "service" its first priority to try to drive up income, puts in place a new public performance operations centre to service the 200,000 pubs, clubs, bars and other PPL licence holders. This will be headed by former head of member services Sue Carty, who takes on the new role of director of customer relationship management.

In a bid to extend PPL's licensing remit, the reshuffle also spins off the roles of director of licensing Tony Clark and director of legal and business affairs Peter Leathern. The pair are now freed from operational duties to create a strategic department, which will have the responsibility of fixing policy and setting tariffs. As part of their deal-making function, they will set rates previously handled by VPL, such as the recent MTV contract, and also investigate new areas such as new media to licence for record companies.

The latest changes by Nevrkla--who took over PPL more than three years ago and has since dramatically improved the distribution systems--do not represent a velvet revolution. Nevrkla, whose previous shake-ups have included addressing the organisation's distribution systems and the launch of the eaten project in early 2002, has already laid off VPL boss Colleen Hue and around half a dozen staff from licensing and IT. He says he is not ruling out further redundancies over the next few months.

In unleashing a second restructuring of PPL in his bid to modernise the collecting society, raise more income and slash overheads, Nevrkla says he does not want to he measured by the standards of other collecting societies, but by the most successful businesses in the commercial world.

"The old collecting societies are dinosaurs," he says. "To be different we must become ...