V V Brown, Laura Mvula and John Truelove reappointed to PRS Members' Council

PRS for Music CEO: A more commercially minded culture which embraces innovation has accelerated record growth

In 2021, PRS for Music CEO, Andrea Czapary Martin committed to maximising the value of music creators’ rights, as she set out an ambitious five-year plan. Today, at this year’s PRS Annual General Meeting (AGM), she reiterated this pledge and confirmed, that with plans accelerated, the organisation is on track to pay out a billion pounds in royalties by 2026, at the latest.

The music collective management organisation (CMO) recently announced record-breaking collections of £964m in 2022, up 18.9% compared to 2019, and royalties paid out increasing by 21.9% on 2019 to £836.2m. Increased revenues have been reported by CMO’s across the globe, indicating a return to pre-pandemic levels, and PRS for Music has more than outperformed the market.

In the last year we leveraged the benefits of our longer-term investments and programmes. Moving our distributions systems to the cloud as well as a review of our overall distribution ecosystem, providing greater speed, transparency, and accuracy in our royalty distributions.  

The implementation of our data strategy has given us more control than ever before, allowing for far greater data-driven decision making.

Key drivers in ensuring PRS is not just world-leading, but world-beating, include partnerships with ICE, which reported music streaming royalties increased by 83% versus 2019, and PPL PRS Ltd, which recently celebrated its fifth anniversary, announcing £1 billion in public performance royalties distributed.

Next year PRS will celebrate its 110 years and while our primary purpose is unchanged, the world around us never stops evolving. In the coming months you will see more pioneering projects such as the ambitious re-design of key areas of the PRS website. We are committed to making it easier than ever for members to register their music and report their live performances, and our ground-breaking metadata portal Nexus will make it easier for writer credits to be managed.

We continue to focus on increasing the breadth of our diversity. In the four years that I have been CEO, I’m incredibly proud that the number of women representatives on the PRS Members’ Council has quadrupled.

Closing her keynote speech, Czapary Martin reflected on the passion, creativity, and brilliance of PRS members, who have provided the soundtrack to the year, calling on the audience to never forget the impact of lyrics and compositions.

The AGM also saw PRS for Music announce the reappointment of Grammy-nominated songwriter, V V Brown, award-winning singer-songwriter, Laura Mvula, and dance music producer, John Truelove, to the PRS Members’ Council, and continue to ensure the views, concerns and needs of PRS members are being represented. The Members’ Council is also responsible for setting budgets, strategic oversight and reviewing company performance, serving as a conduit between the PRS team and songwriter, composer and music publishers who entrust their rights to the organisation.

The PRS Members’ Council exists to give members a voice in how their society is run. We oversee the complexity of collecting songwriters, composers, and music publisher royalties around the world and do everything in our power to protect the value of copyright. V V Brown, Laura Mvula and John Truelove’s combined knowledge and expertise is most welcome on the Members’ Council.

PRS has the privilege to represent the incredible works of inspiring songwriters, composers, and music publishers, with the Members' Council dedicated to ensuring we earn the trust of music creators and our ability to protect their rights. V V Brown, Laura Mvula, and John Truelove’s commitment for PRS to be the best society, will ensure we continue to make strides connecting the dots between creativity, industry, and business.

Tom Toumazis MBE was reappointed as an independent non-executive (iNED) Council Member. Dru Masters stepped down after six years on the Members’ Council of which two years he served as a Deputy Chair.

About PRS for Music

PRS for Music is a world-leading music collective management organisation representing the rights of more than 165,000 talented songwriters, composers and music publishers around the globe. Headquartered in the UK, it works diligently on behalf of its members to grow and protect the value of their rights. With a focus on innovation and integrity, PRS for Music is redefining the global standard for music royalties to ensure creators are paid whenever their musical compositions and songs are streamed, downloaded, broadcast, performed and played in public. In 2022, PRS for Music collected £964m and paid out £836.2m in royalties. prsformusic.com