Royalty bonanza of over €32m for artists from music rights body

The likes of Christy Moore, U2 and Hozier along with a host of other artists last year shared a royalty bonanza payout of €32.29 million from the Irish Music Rights Organisation (Imro).

In the organisation’s annual report, chief executive Vincent Finn said the royalties distributed was a record total for the organisation.

The €32.29 million royalty payout is a 15 per cent increase on the €28.13 million paid out in 2017.

Mr Finn said the distribution reflected the strength of the financial performance of Imro for last year.

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During 2018, the organisation’s revenues increased by 14 per cent from €33.3 million to €37.3 million.

Mr Finn said highlights for the year included robust online revenues; record high for international royalties; buoyant live performance and festivals revenues, and very healthy public performance revenues.

Surplus

Imro has 12,000 members and is a not-for-profit organisation. Last year, its surplus after paying out royalties amounted to €81,744.

The royalties received from the organisation are often the sole income received by non-performing song writers.

Imro generates its royalties from a broad range of sources – from the music played to phone callers when put on hold to a low percentage of revenues at the 3Arena in Dublin.

A breakdown of Imro’s revenues show its Irish revenues last year increased by 13 per cent from €26.5 million to €30 million while UK revenues stood at €2.3 million with revenues from other EU countries totalling €3.22 million.

Staff costs

Revenues from the US totalled €931,909 while “rest of world” revenues amounted to €1.29 million.

Numbers employed last year increased from 57 to 59 with staff costs increasing from €3.68 million to €3.78 million. Remuneration for directors increased from €256,606 to €321,021.

A note attached to the accounts show that royalties paid by the organisation to Imro directors and to parties related to them amounted to €279,401.

The total remuneration paid to key management personnel last year totalled €910,647.

The surplus takes account of combined non-cash depreciation and amortisation costs of €624,228.