British collecting society PRS for Music has published its annual figures, reporting record-breaking revenues and distributions in 2022.
Revenues grew by 22.9% year-on-year to £964 million (an increase of £179.4m) in 2022, compared to £777.1m in the Covid-bounceback year of 2021, and above even 2019’s pre-covid figures of £810.8m – the previous high figure.
Royalties paid out in 2022 totalled £836m, an increase of 23.5% compared to 2021. Music streaming contributed £284.3m to overall royalties and live music’s post-lockdown rebound generated £62.7m of royalties, an increase of £54.7m compared to lockdown-affected 2021, but perhaps more interestingly, a 16.1% (£8.7m) increase on the pre-Covid period of 2019.
Andrea Czapary Martin, CEO of PRS for Music, has ambitions to increase those payouts to the billion-pound milestone, aiming to “pay out over £1 billion in royalties within the next five years.”
That target was set back in 2021: if payouts keep increasing at a 20%+ rate, that target could be achieved within a year; however, these growth figures are compared to the Covid-affected period, so we’ll have to wait to see what true post-lockdown growth looks like. (2019 saw an increase of 13.7% on 2018’s figure, for comparison.)
The results also shone light on PRS for Music’s operating costs: the cost-to-income ratio (how much of the total revenue figure is spent on the operational running of PRS) was reduced to 9.3%, which PRS for Music says is the lowest ever percentage.
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