PPL has announced it collected a record £271.8 million for performers and recording rightsholders in 2019 - a 10% increase on the previous year.
Growth was achieved across all three of the music licensing company’s revenue streams; broadcast and online income grew by 2% to £85.5m; public performance and dubbing by 8% to £99.6m, and international collections by 22% to £86.7m. The organisation now has more than 95 international agreements with its counterparts around the world and received monies from a number of territories for the first time in 2019, including CMOs in Africa and Latin America.
In April, PPL made an advance royalty payment to support members during the pandemic.
We saw record revenues and paid out performance royalties to more performers and recording rightsholders than ever before
Peter Leathem
PPL
Peter Leathem, CEO of PPL, said: "2019 was a positive year for PPL as we saw record revenues and paid out performance royalties to more performers and recording rightsholders than ever before. Such success benefits the growing community that we represent both in the UK and internationally.
"The strength of our collections and business operations meant that PPL has been in a position to take additional steps to help our members and the wider music community during the current crisis. In March, we made a payment of £87.6 million to over 26,000 performers and recording rightsholders, with a further advance payment of £23.9 million in April, to over 15,000 performers and recording rightsholders. In addition, we have made and will continue to make a number of contributions to industry hardship funds in order to bring support to those who need it most during these times.”
PPL’s revenue from the use of recorded music across licensed broadcast and online linear services was up 2% from £83.6m in 2018 to £85.5m in 2019. For radio, this was driven in part by a rise in advertising income from the commercial radio sector and by an increase in the number of smaller radio broadcasters and online linear webcasters acquiring licences.
Public performance and dubbing1 income increased by 8% to £99.6m in 2019, up from £92.3m in 2018, in the second full year of PPL’s public performance licensing joint venture with PRS For Music – PPL PRS Ltd.
In 2019 PPL also distributed money at least once to over 108,000 performers and 11,000 recording rightsholders, the first time that PPL has paid more than 100,000 different performers in a single financial year.
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