2011 PPL AGM: 2010 revenues reveal solid growth across all areas of the company's business

PPL, the UK music licensing company working on behalf of record companies and performers, today announced its financial results for the year ending December 2010 at the company's annual AGM, which took place at the music venue and contemporary arts gallery, Kings Place, London.

The guest key note speaker was John Cridland, CBE, CBI Director–General.

In what was another tough financial year for the majority of PPL's licensees and customers it was reported that:

Total licence fee income grew 10.7% to £143.5 million from £129.6 million the previous year. Public performance income saw a strong growth of 2% from £48.9 million to £50.1millionBroadcasting and Online grew by 4.5% from £59.1million to £61.7millionInternational revenues grew 47% to £31.7 millionThe cost to revenue ratio fell to 13.6% – the lowest figure this century.

These figures show solid growth in all areas of the company's business following 2009 and the adverse effect of the Copyright Tribunal that year. The 2% growth in Public Performance is noteworthy as it was achieved despite both extremely difficult trading conditions for many of the company's customers and licensees but also because the Order imposed by the 2009 Copyright Tribunal had resulted in three of the company's tariffs being lowered to their 2003 levels thereby reducing the amount of money available for collection.

Placed at number one in the recent Performance Rights World Rankings*, the 47% growth in International Revenues follows the growing use of UK music overseas, the growth of collections from other music licensing companies (particularly in North America) and investment in systems. In 2010 new agreements were signed with counterparts in Bulgaria, Jamaica, Latvia and New Zealand, taking the number of international contracts PPL now has to over 50. The company is rapidly approaching the collection of £100million of international revenues since the service opened in 2002.

It was also reported that PPL's record company membership increased to 6,300, a 26% uplift from 2010 whilst the company's performer membership saw growth to 47,500 – a rise of nearly 15%.

Through the year PPL continued its commitment and investment in systems and technologies, with the near completion of a planned two year upgrade programme. Improvements have been implemented to the way in which members interact with their accounts, register claims and update personal details. A new usage and matching system was also launched, further improving the accuracy in which PPL matches and pays out on track line ups.

In his Chairman's address, Fran Nevrkla looked back on his ten years as Chairman and CEO of PPL, a tenure which has seen over £1.14 billion distributed to PPL members, substantially more that the organisation had collected in its previous 65 year history. He also informed attendees of the meeting of his succession plan for the organisation.

As part of the formal business proceedings, Julian French, SVP, Legal and Business Affairs, EMI Music, Dominic McGonigal, Director, Government Relations, PPL, James Radice, Senior Director of Legal & Business Affairs, Universal Music UK and Adrian Sear, Commercial Director, Demon Music Group were all successfully re-elected onto the PPL Board.

The PPL 2010 Annual Review was distributed at the AGM and this can be found on the company website – ppluk.com.