PPL has announced a record quarterly international payment to its members. Music Week broke the news in our interview with chief executive Peter Leathem in the latest issue.
The collecting society paid out £18.5 million in global performance royalties on September 29. The figure represents a 3% increase (£600,000 in cash terms) on the previous largest quarterly payment of £17.9m in 2016.
“Our sustained growth in this area illustrates that PPL is a market leader in the global music rights space,” said Leathem. “We are setting the bar in the best-in-class service we offer to our members and raising the standards across the industry. The year ahead will be a very exciting one for us as we continue to invest in innovation, technology and data capabilities to make our operations even more efficient.”
PPL said that 19,000 performers and 1,500 record companies received the latest payments of royalties for recorded music played in public overseas. Collections have grown thanks to an increasing number of reciprocal arrangements: 84 international collection agreements are now in place across 40 countries.
The latest deal is with IPF, the Slovenian performer collective management organisation. Further agreements are in the pipeline as PPL continues to expand its international collections.
Our sustained growth in this area illustrates that PPL is a market leader in the global music rights space
Peter Leathem
The most significant contrbutions from the latest distribution were made by CMOs including CONNECT ML (Canada), Playright (Belgium), SIMIM (Belgium), SoundExchange (USA), and Spedidam (France). While the US has no performance royalties system for recorded music, PPL still garnered a significant amount from SoundExchange thanks to British repertoire featuring on satellite and internet radio services such as Sirius XM and Pandora.
Laurence Oxenbury, director of International, PPL said: “This record international payment is testament to the true talent and popularity of the music we represent that is played and listened to by millions around the world. At PPL, we are proud to act as a pipeline for the pounds and pennies to flow back through to the creators who invest so much time, effort and money in bringing us the music we all enjoy.”
In February 2017, PPL announced a record annual international collection of £48.3 million for last year – up almost a third (31.6%) on the £36.7 million collected in 2015. Earlier this year, Leathem hailed the organisation’s overall performance in 2016.
You can read the full interview with Peter Leathem and get the inside track on PPL’s record payout here. To subscribe and never miss a big music industry story, click here.
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