Delivering for members
A continued focus on improving service, amid record payments for members
In 2023, we paid close to 165,000 performers and recording rightsholders, either directly through our 145,000-strong membership, or via our network of international agreements. With a focus on delivering a quality service to a diverse community, we restructured our Member Services department over 2023 to enable us to serve members more efficiently and effectively.
Delivering a quality service to our member community
In 2023, PPL welcomed 3,919 new performer registrations, and 2,988 recording rightsholder registrations. Despite increasing competition in the market, our retention rate across the whole membership exceeded 99% in 2023, including high-profile artists such as Central Cee and Ellie Goulding.
We continued to serve our members, honouring the commitments set out in our members’ code of conduct. This includes responding to member queries within 10 working days. In 2023, we answered over 47,000 queries from members via email or telephone, or through myPPL, ensuring 99% of correspondence was acknowledged within two days, with over 85% of telephone calls answered in 30 seconds or less.
As part of our changing structure, we introduced new Genre Relationship Manager roles to further enhance PPL’s engagement with the Black Music, Classical and Dance communities. We are making positive progress in elevating awareness of PPL among performers and rightsholders in these genres, through broader profile-raising and direct engagement across a variety of new activities.
During 2023, we started a project to simplify the systems and processes through which we pay, and report to, our members. The first phase of the project is due to finish at the end of 2024. We also launched a new Analytic Data Platform (ADP), based on the latest cloud technology. The ADP puts data analytics right at the core of PPL’s decision-making, providing new capabilities to help improve operational efficiencies and enhance our member experience.
To make music for a living is an honour and a privilege. Knowing that your investment in the creative process will be fairly rewarded when your songs are enjoyed around the world is so important in ensuring you can continue and grow as an artist. Thanks to all at PPL who make that happen.
Maximising payments for members
2023 saw continued success in maximising payments for those who invest their time, talent and money into making recorded music.
Having distributed a record £98 million in June to more than 121,000 performers and recording rightsholders, we ended the year with an all-time high December distribution of £48.7 million – a 13% rise from December 2022. This figure also reflected the continued increase in revenue distributed within the year of collection.
As part of the December distribution, we also made the latest distribution of annual supplementary remuneration (ASR) to eligible performers for the extended term of copyright; in 2023 this related to sound recordings released between 1963 and 1971. Since the first ASR distribution in 2015, PPL has now allocated more than £7.6 million to eligible performers.
In total, through the four quarterly payments made in 2023, PPL paid out £271.9 million (14% more than in 2022) to close to 165,000 performers and recording rightsholders.
Alongside working to grow collections, we continually work to trace the beneficiaries of deceased performers and those who manage or represent their estates, in order to ensure the royalties due for those works reach the right individuals.
Out and about
Throughout 2023, PPL hosted, attended or supported 142 industry events as part of our aim to show up for our members and our industry as broadly as possible. These included the Great Escape, the Welsh Music Prize, the Northern Ireland Music Prize, the Scottish Album of the Year Awards, the African Music Summit, ADE, IMS Ibiza and SXSW, taking our team to all the UK regions and across to Europe and the US.
For the first time, we also held our Annual Performer Meeting outside of London, heading to Belfast in November 2023 which provided a fantastic opportunity to meet with members and the wider sector in Northern Ireland.
Central Cee is one of the biggest rappers to come out of the UK; he has built a successful career in Europe and is well on the rise in the US. During this time, PPL has provided a crucial and reliable service for us, something that is especially important for Cench as an independent artist. We have faith in PPL’s abilities to collect royalties where his music is played around the world and that’s why we’ve re-signed with them. The team works hard for us and they know this part of the industry inside out. They care about artists and are great to deal with. This allows me to do my job and focus on developing Central Cee to be the biggest rapper in the world.
