Music Prize Ltd.

The Mercury Prize, formerly called the Mercury Music Prize and currently known as the Barclaycard Mercury Prize for sponsorship reasons, is an annual music prize awarded for the best album from the United Kingdom and Ireland. It was established by the British Phonographic Industry and British Association of Record Dealers in 1992 as an alternative to the Brit Awards. The prize was originally sponsored by Mercury Communications, a brand owned by Cable & Wireless, from which the prize gets its name. It was later sponsored by Technics, from 1998 to 2001, Panasonic, in 2002 and 2003, and the Nationwide Building Society, from 2004 to 2008. Barclaycard became the Prize's current sponsor in March 2009. (From Wikipedia) Each year, a sampler is released on the Prize's own label, containing a song from each of the shortlisted albums.