Jackie Davidson and Peter Thoms have been elected as performer directors by PPL-registered performers.
They will sit on both the PPL performer board and main board.
Davidson and Thoms were elected during the PPL Annual Performer Meeting.
Peter Leathem, PPL’s chief executive officer, said: “We warmly welcome Jackie Davidson and Peter Thoms to PPL as new performer directors, whose experience will play a crucial role in PPL’s continued strong performance. I would also like to thank Crispin Hunt and Mark Kelly, as they step down, for their commitment and contribution to our work.”
Eight candidates stood for the two performer director positions available: Jackie Davidson, Mark Kelly, Gary Powell, David Rowntree, Lauren Rozwadowski, Nadine Shah, Peter Thoms, and Firas Waez.
Leathem also addressed the impact of Covid-19 on PPL, as well as its recent performance.
“2019 was a successful year for PPL,” he said. “Thanks to the expertise of our team and an industry-leading technology infrastructure, we not only collected £271.8 million but made at least one payment to more than 100,000 performers in a single calendar year for the first time. However, while the long-term future still looks positive, we are predicting that there will be a significant impact on licensing revenues in 2020 as a result of Covid-19. We are currently expecting a decline in UK revenue of 30% on 2019, while we expect International collections to remain strong in 2020 but to be impacted in 2021.”
He added: “Covid-19 has also caused significant hardship for many in the music community. This year, we have worked hard to support our members and the wider industry, contributing over £1 million to industry hardship funds so those who have fallen into financial hardship can access support. In April we also made an advance payment to our members of £23.9 million to bridge the gap between our traditional March and June payments. To date we have paid out over £200 million to performers and recording rightsholders this year.”
FOLLOW 
