FOI request detail

Music on TfL

Request ID: FOI-1203-2223
Date published: 25 August 2022

You asked

Are there any occasions on which Transport for London has played, or enabled to be playing for example by its own staff in their employment putting a radio on across a vehicle or part of it, pop music of the then current time on any transport service that it has itself operated, particularly in the first nine years of TFL's existence, any details of what specific songs (title and artist) have been played (and versions if possible) - may be a whole list of returns to PRS for Music for all I know or what radio/television services (may be audio only from music television or may be both audio and screen) have been played - also a copy of any complaints received about music (played by TFL itself) especially any about it making anyone uncomfortable or causing them offence. Pop music may also be rap music or rock music, as many of these songs contain offensive language including the radio versions still nearly all doing so I find (in fact they are the only versions that have been played in public places that have managed to cause me offence and did so numerous numerous times over and regularly and constantly, with myself turning out to be unusual as an autistic person) and are responsible for my PTSD existing today that was eventually caused by it all in 2009 after - it took a very long time - around a decade of it all almost every single week without any respite and songs remaining of a sexual nature even after individual words are technically removed from the soundtracks and given to me more heavily in my thoughts instead that are then reinforced and made way more uncomfortable for me by these songs so I am not convinced that, given that TFL defines sexual harassment as "anything that makes you uncomfortable" that TFL itself is not guilty of sexual harassment behaviour by playing radio edit songs of a sexual nature that are songs that regularly caused me to feel extremely uncomfortable in numerous different ways as well as lots of songs including offensive language (a concept that is wider than vocalised words), even though fortunately TFL isn't implicated in any of the behaviour of putting offensive songs and allowing or enabling them to be played, including by just switching a radio on, as those that caused me all of this are outside of London as I live elsewhere in the UK. Please let me know the information I have requested preferably by PDF.

We answered

Our ref: FOI-1203-2223/GH

Thank you for your request received by Transport for London (TfL) on 8 August 2022 asking for information about music played by TfL.

Your request has been considered under the requirements of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and our information access policy. I can confirm that we do hold some of the information you require.

We have not and currently do not play “pop music” (or rap or rock) on any TfL service. In stations, we have played classical music at a limited number of locations to improve ambience and deter anti-social behaviour.

We allow advertisers to pay to add music to select advertising spaces at Kings Cross and Waterloo.  There is a limit to how many times this can be done in the year. The music must adhere to our advertising policy and is submitted four weeks in advance of the campaign for approval.  In addition to the policy we have guidelines on what noises are acceptable within our space.  All music is cleared by TfL before it is allowed.
 
Typically the music submitted has been upbeat funk with a spoken overlay of words.  No branding or commercial messages allowed.  The music runs from to 9.30am-5pm, Monday to Friday.

All music that we play in our advertising is organised through our advertising agency and all usage rights to artists and composers are paid and managed very closely. TfL does not hold a list of the titles of music/songs which have been used in radio or television advertisements. To provide this information we would therefore need to ask our advertising agency to look at every advert to compile this information. Whilst we only hold information for 7 years, looking at all the adverts to identify the title and artist for each would take an excessive amount of time.
 
|With regards to any complaints received, we do not have a specific category to log any complaints received regarding music on the network or used in our advertisements. We would therefore need to search for any such complaints by using the keyword ‘music’. We have carried out such a search for just one calendar month (January 2022), and identified over 90 complaints were received. Whilst many of these may not be relevant to the issues you raise, we would need to manually check each one to see if the complaint was relevant.  Searching for any complaints over a longer timeframe would no doubt result in a much higher number of complaints, each of which would need to be manually assessed, and this would take an excessive amount of time, and would exceed the ‘appropriate limit’ of £450 set by the Freedom of Information (Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations 2004.

Under section 12 of the FOI Act, we are not obliged to comply with requests if we estimate that the cost of determining whether we hold the information, locating and retrieving it and extracting it from other information would exceed the appropriate limit. In this instance, we estimate that the time required to answer your request would exceed 18 hours which, at £25 per hour (the rate stipulated by the Regulations), exceeds the ‘appropriate limit’.

If you are not satisfied with this response please see the attached information sheet for details of your right to appeal.

Yours sincerely

Graham Hurt
FOI Case Officer
FOI Case Management Team
General Counsel
Transport for London

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