Irish music artists shared €40m in royalties from IMRO

Big names such as Christy Moore, U2 and Hozier along with a host of other artists last year shared a royalty bonanza of €40.28m from the Irish Music Rights Organisation (IMRO) due in part to a buoyant concert market in 2023.

The €40.28m payout follows IMRO enjoying record revenues of €45.81m in 2023.

The royalty payout is a €4.7m or 13% increase on the €35.5m equivalent for 2022.

In her accompanying statement, chairperson of IMRO, Eleanor McEvoy, said that IMRO had produced “excellent results”.

“2023 saw a huge growth of membership in IMRO, with our membership currently standing at almost 25,000 members,” she said.

In their report, the directors, who include Newstalk presenter and frontman of Something Happens, Tom Dunne, state that “the strong performance of multi-territorial, domestic online and overseas revenue, due to the performance of the repertoire and the addition of new writers, was supplemented by the continuing buoyant concert market, up 27% on the prior year”.

CEO, Victor Finn, said that the revenues for 2023 of €45.8m had reached an all time high and was “a healthy increase” of 8% on the €42.5m revenues of 2022.

He said that costs for the year amounted to €6.2m, down by €603,000, or 9% in the financial year.

“The positive news for our composers, authors, and publishers is that the use of music continues to grow and develop,” he added.

“We must ensure that creatives get their fair share of this ever-expanding market, with timely regulations allowing orderly markets to prevail.”

During 2023 total royalties paid by IMRO to the directors and to parties related to the directors of IMRO amounted to €3.4m and this was a sharp increase on the €2.37m paid out in 2022.

IMRO last year recorded a pre-tax loss of €1.3m and this was mainly due to a non-cash charge of €1.58m that arose from the completion of a buy-out of the legacy defined benefit scheme.

A note attached to the accounts states that “the buy-out secures the pensions of past employees through the purchase of annuities and eliminates three key risks to the Company associated with maintaining a defined benefit pension scheme pension: investment, inflation and longevity risks.”

The loss last year also takes account of combined non-cash depreciation and amortisation costs of €721,397.

Numbers employed last year increased from 49 to 56 while wage and salaries rose from €3m to €3.47m.

Pay to six members of key management personnel, including pension contributions, totalled €983,190 last year.

IMRO’s cash funds last year increased from €15.4m to €16.44m.