30 MusicWeek 02.08.13 PUBLISHING SPECIAL INDIE FOCUS DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENTS
Some of the UK’s leading independent music publishers reveal all about their business’s performance in the last quarter and their thoughts on the future of the British market
PUBLISHING BY TIM INGHAM
PEERMUSIC Nigel Elderton, European President
What have been the highlights for Peer in the last quarter? 2013 has been very busy for us.
The BBC/Discovery channel commissioned Sarah Class to compose and produce the music for the six-episode series titled Africa narrated by Sir David Attenborough. This series went to air in the UK in January and has received massive critical acclaim. This epic series has sold to over 160 countries including the US. Sarah is now in the studio with six-times Grammy award winning producer Jay Newland (Norah Jones) working on her new album. We’ve also been very happy to extend our 10-year working relationship with Adam Argyle. And we have penned an exciting new deal with AWAL to provide our development artists with further online marketing and distribution support.
Which areas of your business are doing particularly well and why? With 30 offices across 28 territories, we have a very strong creative and administrative presence worldwide. This has been reflected in a global success. Adam Argyle is about to head out to work in Nashville and LA for the third time this year; he has also had notable success in Australia and around Europe, with the full weight of our creative teams behind him. Dele Ladimeji has recently celebrated his 11th No.1 in Asia with one of their biggest selling boybands, and recently returned from another very successful writing trip there. Despite the size of our company, our ethos has always been on personal service and close relationships with our writers. For that reason, we make sure that each peermusic office maintains a manageable size of roster, and has the A&R capacity to strategically work each writer and artist. We also have an active sync department in every office around the world, and consider this to be a defining strength of the company. We have been involved in a number of successful campaigns these past few years from Toyota’s use of Je Ne Regrette Rien across Europe to M&S using Olly Murs’ Busy (co-written by Adam Argyle) as their signature sound for the best part of two years. Having established peer’s pan-European licencing vehicle through PRS back in 2008 (we were the first independent and the second publisher after EMI/CELAS), we are now reaping the rewards to take the leap into pan-European Licencing of our Anglo American and Latin online rights. This has enabled us to have greater control, and through our association with IMPEL (Independent Music Publishers European Licencing) we are able to include our repertoire with other independent publishers catalogues to provide a more efficient and dynamic way to negotiate.
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ABOVE Recent indie publishing successes: [Clockwise from top left] Ayah Marar receives her double- platinum disc from Notting Hill Music (L-R: manager Ali Fletcher, John Saunderson, Ayah Marar, Leopold Whiteley and NHM MD Dave Loader); Carlin- signed John Tams, who provided music for War Horse; Imagem-signed Mark Ronson; Peermusic- signed Adam Argyle; Rudimental, whose album contained cuts from Bucks
What for you is currently the biggest challenge facing the indie publishing sector? The biggest challenge that both indie and majors publishers face is the devaluation of our rights, particularly in the digital space. It is unacceptable that publishers and our writers and composers have to negotiate over the ‘crumbs’ left after record companies have taken the lion’s share of the money available from deals with ISPs and those online businesses which use our music. While the fragmentation of rights has created its own problems and challenges it has also provided publishers with an opportunity to negotiate directly with users of music and attain more competitive fees than may have been the case through the old mechanism of collective licensing of the worldwide repertoire. The establishment of IMPEL (which represents the Anglo/American Pan European rights of many of the UK's independent publishers) has put us in control of the licencing process and has enabled us to determine the value of the deals with ISPs. This has been a game changer for our business and will continue to provide an efficient and cost-effective way for users of our music to obtain pan-European licences from IMPEL via the PRS.
CARLIN MUSIC CORPORATION Peter Thomas, General Manager
What have been the highlights for you in the last quarter?
Signing an agreement with IMPEL covering the licensing of our digital rights on a pan-European basis. Also having a couple of tracks featured in The Great Gatsby movie as well as the continuing success of stage show War Horse (featuring music by our celebrated folk writer/artist John Tams) and the recent renewal of our long term (25 years and counting) deal with Dominic Muldowney, another hugely talented and respected composer best known for his work in film, TV and theatre.
Which areas of your business are doing particularly well and why? Synchronisation continues to be a key area for us and we have put a lot of effort and resource into developing our website, social media and other promotional tools. The sheer number of commercials currently broadcasting which feature our songs is testament both to the efforts of our
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