PRS AGM 2024: £6m extra to be passed onto members

Newly elected Council Members announced.

Songwriters and composers are set to receive an additional £6 million in royalties from online services, each year, from PRS for Music. 

Celebrating her fifth year as CEO, Andrea Czapary Martin, announced a landmark 20% reduction in the administration rate from 10 to 8 percent applied to multi-territory online (MTOL) royalties’ collection. 

The admin rate reduction is a result of the Collective Management Organisation (CMO) surpassing its targets, delivering historic distributions and revenues, and becoming a billion-pound society. This success is being passed on directly, back to its members, by lowering the administration rate. 

Announced at its 2024 Annual General Meeting (AGM) earlier today, PRS estimates the reduction will see a massive £1.5 million more, paid out to members in each of its quarterly royalty distributions from October this year, totalling £47 million more by 2030. 

In addition, Martin says, next year, the society will begin a comprehensive review of its administration rates across all revenue streams, with a view to reducing and simplifying them. 

The company’s focus on innovation, technology, transparency and efficiency, as well as improving services from its joint venture with ICE, has delivered consistent year-on-year growth while maintaining a cost-to-income ratio below 10 percent for a second year running.

We have achieved so much over the last year with radical and technological developments, that last year we paid out a record-breaking £943.6 million in royalties; an increase of nearly 13% on the previous year. We also broke the billion-pound revenue threshold. I believe that the success of the society should be defined by the success we pass on to songwriters and composers. I am delighted to announce that the reduction in multi-territory online licensing admin fees, is a real tangible example of how we are constantly working on behalf of members to be competitive, and to get more money to them, more quickly.

PRS also announced the appointment of four newly elected members to the Council; Publisher Council Members’ Phil Rose (Sentric Music) and Laura Young (S2K Music), and Writer Council Members’ Mike Stobbie and Pete Woodroffe, the latter being appointed for a second term.

Stevie Spring CBE was officially appointed to the Members’ Council; she succeeds Stephen Davidson as Chair of the PRS for Music Board, who has held the role since 2014 and is standing down after serving his full tenure.

Erica Ingham was reappointed as an Independent Non-Executive (iNED) Council Member. Simon Platz stepped down as a Publisher Council Member after serving on the Members’ Council since 2008, some of which he also served as Deputy Chair. 

This year’s AGM also saw the ratification of several impactful resolutions designed to promote fairness, representation and improvements to how the society is run, including: expansion of the Members’ Council to ten writers and ten publisher representatives to ensure more ideas, expertise and lived experiences are represented; a new “Voting Plus” category to encourage more writer members to engage with the democratic process; and an enhanced Annual Transparency Report.

A vital component of PRS’s achievements is the role the Members’ Council serves in representing the concerns and needs of songwriters, composers, and music publishers. Congratulations to newly elected Directors Phil Rose, Laura Young and Mike Stobbie, and Pete Woodroffe on his reappointment, whose combined knowledge and expertise will be an asset in the next chapter of the society.”

About PRS for Music

Here for music since 1914, PRS for Music is a world-leading music collective management organisation representing the rights of more than 175,000 talented songwriters, composers and music publishers. Redefining the global standard for music royalties, PRS for Music ensures songwriters and composers are paid whenever their musical compositions and songs are streamed, downloaded, broadcast, performed and played in public. 

For 110 years it has grown and protected the rights of the music creator community, paying out royalties with more accuracy, transparency and speed. In 2023, PRS for Music paid out £943.6m in royalties and collected a record £1.08 billion in revenues. prsformusic.com