PPL has announced that collections for 2017 increased by 3% to hit £218.8 million.
As exclusively revealed in the latest issue of Music Week, the money collected for its performer and record company members was up £6.7 million on the £212.1 million collected in 2016. PPL delivered growth across each of its three main revenues streams – broadcast, public performance & dubbing and international.
Broadcast revenue grew by 3% (£2.5 million) to £79.9 million. In addition to licensing arrangements with public service and commercial broadcasters for the use of recorded music in their TV and radio services, PPL also focused on its wider broadcast licensing including community radio, online radio streaming services, music in TV programmes made available for download and the copying of programmes containing recorded music for sale to other broadcasters.
Public performance and dubbing also saw an increase of 3% (£2.9 million) year-on-year with £89.3 million being collected in total. Since February, public performance is now administered PPL PRS Ltd, PPL’s JV venture with PRS for Music. This joint venture, based in Leicester, offers a single public performance licence covering both companies’ respective rights.
PPL’s dubbing licensing covers the commercial copying of music by specialist companies that supply music systems to businesses such as shops, bars and gyms for the playing of recorded music.
Peter Leathem, chief executive at PPL, said: “I am very pleased that PPL has been able to grow its revenue, particularly at a time when we were also heavily focused on building PPL PRS Ltd – the biggest joint venture of its kind in the world as well as a range of other ground breaking projects.
“This continued success can be attributed to a highly-skilled, dedicated and hard-working team at PPL, our ongoing investment in technology and our focus on innovation, all of which has furthered our efforts to improve the quality of the data which underpins our business and the wider neighbouring rights market.”
In 2017 we paid more performers and record companies than ever before – over 98,000 at least once
Peter Leathem
As first revealed in Music Week, PPL’s international collections business also achieved growth of 3% in 2017, with £49.6 million collected. PPL said the 32% prior year increase was down to one-off payments. Since 2006, PPL has collected over £355 million internationally for performers and record companies. It now has 87 international agreements in place with overseas CMOs.
Leathem added: “We continue to do the heavy lifting so our members do not have to and we have been able to build on the high-quality service we provide to our members. In 2017 we paid more performers and record companies than ever before – over 98,000 at least once, up nearly 6% on the previous year.”
The 2017 financial results will be presented at PPL’s Annual General Meeting on June 6.
To read the full story, including the only interview with Peter Leathem, see this week's print edition of Music Week, or click here and our PPL-PRS cover feature is here. To subscribe and never miss a big industry story, click here.
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