UK music licensing organisation PPL has paid out £61.3 million to more than 25,000 performers, producers and recording rightsholders in the first of its four annual distributions.

PPL licenses music that is played in public or broadcast on TV or radio in the UK and then redistributes these fees to music creators.

The Q1 payment for 2021 includes £28.1 million of international royalties, collected from 63 collective management organisations (CMOs) around the world. This includes significant payments coming from Germany, USA and Italy.

March’s payday brings the total distributed by PPL since the pandemic began to £308.8 million, marking a positive step in what has been an incredibly tough time for the music industry.

“PPL fully established its International collections operation in 2006, and since then has distributed hundreds of millions of pounds to our mandating members for the use of their recorded music overseas,” said Peter Leathem, PPL Chief Executive Officer. 

“Each year our team of neighbouring rights experts work with CMOs around the world to maximise the global recorded music royalty revenues we collect and distribute each quarter. Today’s payment reflects the quality of our operations and the popularity of our members’ repertoire – it is one of the highest quarterly distribution totals in our history and brings the total paid out over the pandemic to £308.8 million.”

PPL collects and distributes fees to over 120,000 performers and recording rightsholders.  It has invested heavily in cutting-edge technology to improve accuracy and processing to ensure that revenues are passed on to music creators more efficiently.