This article is more than 1 year old

Cheer up songwriters, there's shedloads of money rolling in

Someone's earning plenty. It just isn't you

The UK's performing sights society PRS for Music recorded a slim profit of £1.4m last year on turnover of £73.9m.

The society collects and distributes royalties for songwriters and music publishers from radio, physical venues and plays on the internet, as well as the “mechanical” – a small proportion from the sale of a sound recording.

Songwriters have been at the rough end of the move to digital music streaming, with paltry royalty payments prompting artists to withdraw from the services. One indie songwriter reckoned that his group would need to be played 312,000 times on Spotify to earn them the income they receive from just one album sale.

But it’s not bad news for everyone.

The salary of PRS chief executive Robert Ashcroft rose to £765,000, excluding pension contributions. In 2009 the CEO was awarded £573,444, excluding pension – a 33 per cent increase over five years. The accounts note that Ashcroft also enjoyed a deferred bonus of £223,032. Over £433,000 was booked as deferred bonuses.

The audited accounts for 2013 state that Directors Remuneration was £1.024m (2010: £722,000), but in this year’s accounts, the 2013 figure is pegged back to £888,000.

Why is the boardroom so blessed when songwriters are feeling the pinch? The PRS argues that the chief exec's salary reflects the turnover of a similarly sized commercial organisation. Critics say the PRS isn't a commercial organisation at all: it's a regulated monopoly or concession that processes, rather than raises, its revenue, with money coming in and going out again, minus an administrative fee. Like the Tote – or Horserace Totalisator Board – which, in its final year before privatisation (2011) paid its CEO £230,000 and its directors £357,850.

Last summer, the PRS halted an ambitious joint initiative with other performing rights societies to create a Global Repertoire Database (GRD), which arose from an EU competition several years ago. The GRD would have created a database for music rights users to license more easily. Its abandonment led to criticism that the participants, who traditionally raise their money through collectivised rights management, didn’t really want to see a more market-based enabler succeed.

The PRS wanted to work with Swedish society STIM and German giant GEMA to create a multi-territory licensing agency, but the European Competition Commission is worried the big three might have too much market power, and is investigating.

Readers can offer an appropriate tune for the songwriters' digital predicament in the Comments, below.

We'll start you off with this one. ®

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