Royalty pay hastened for Irish artists
THE Irish Music Rights Organisation (IMRO) is speeding up its distribution of royalty payments to its members in response to artists’ live music royalty income collapsing as a result of Covid-19.
According IMRO’s CEO, Victor Finn, the organisation aims to limit the financial impact on royalty payments to members as much as possible.
In his comments attached to IMRO’s annual report for 2019, Mr Finn stated that from April onwards in response to the Covid-19 impact, IMRO introduced radio royalty monthly distributions to members that pre-Covid were distributed on a quarterly basis “so that royalties can get to members more quickly”.
The new accounts for IMRO show that the likes of Christy Moore, U2 and Hozier along with a host of other artists last year shared a royalty bonanza payout of €31.42m from IMRO, In an interview on Wednesday, Mr Finn stated that the radio royalty payments would be worth around €250,000 per month to members.
He stated: “IMRO members rely heavily on royalty income generated by IMRO, particularly now in the absence of live performances and the impact of international travel restrictions which is preventing members who would traditionally generate a significant percentage of their annual income from concerts here in Ireland and overseas.”
Mr Finn said that in response to Covid-19, IMRO had also delivered significant cost savings through the introduction of company-wide cost containment measures. He stated that these measures include, but not limited to, reductions in Board, Chair, CEO and senior management salaries and a freeze on recruitment.