UK Songwriter Online Royalties Top £51M

PRS for Music reported a record £641.8m collected in royalties for songwriters, composers and music publishers in the 2012 fiscal year, a 1.7% increase on 2011.

Expansion in the online market, especially streaming services, netted £51.7m in music royalties. This is the highest figure to date and up 32.2% on 2011’s £38.5m. Over the last five years average annual growth for online has been 27%. New licensing deals with Google Play, Vevo and Microsoft Xbox and the renewal of existing agreements means UK creators now receive 8% of their royalty income from online music services.

The organisation collects royalties for over 95,000 members and licenses in excess of 350,000 UK businesses including 300 radio stations and 450 television channels. Royalties from broadcasters in 2012 rose by 3.1% to £153m representing almost 24% of overall income for music creators.

International revenues suffered a decline of 4.1% due to significant exchange rate losses, specifically because of the Euro and a challenging economic climate in many countries. Despite these challenges, international royalty revenue provided UK music creators with their single largest source of income at £180.1m. 2012 was a year when UK songwriters continued to dominate internationally with Mumford and Sons, Ed Sheeran and Calvin Harris enjoying global chart success and other prominent writers seeing their music accompany television and film content worldwide.

Robert Ashcroft, Chief Executive commented: “Copyright remains fundamental to the continued success of our members both at home and abroad, while the ever-increasing importance of licensed online services such as iTunes and Spotify underlines the value of music to the internet economy”.

Source: PRS for Music