GEMA Reports Record Results, Revenue Up 8.4%

GEMA’s revenue rose 8.4% in 2023, to €1.28 billion ($1.4 billion), the German collective management society (CMO) announced April 8, and for the second year in a row it will distribute more than a billion Euros to its members – €1.08 billion ($1.17 billion) to be exact. That income was offset by an expense ratio of 15.2%, up from 14.3% last year at a time of relatively high inflation of 5.9% in Germany.  

“2023 will go down as the most successful financial year in GEMA’s history to date,” GEMA CEO Tobias Holzmüller said in a statement. “Despite the tense economic circumstances, we have worked to minimize costs and once again increased distributable funds. This sends an important message to our now 94,000 members: You can rely on your GEMA.”  

GEMA is the first of the major European CMOs to announce its 2023 results, and they could be a sign that the growth of the last two years is starting to slow. CMO revenue growth over the long term has been fueled by the success of streaming, as well as competition in most big markets, but it got a big boost in 2021 and especially 2022 as the concert business returned in the wake of COVID. Last year, GEMA revenue grew 13%, SACEM was up 34%, and PRS For Music 23%. (It is difficult to make meaningful comparisons between CMOs, since their results include different forms of income and are calculated using different accounting methods and in some cases different currencies.) PRS, the U.K. CMO, is expected to report its results in a month or so, while SACEM usually does so a bit later in the year.  

GEMA’s largest source of income was public performance, which rose 24% to €444 million ($480 million). After that comes radio and television, down 6.2% to €304.8 million ($329.7 million); online, up 3% to €310.3 million ($335.7 million); statutory compensation, which consists of levies on blank media, including computers and tablets and the settlement of legal disputes, up 26.2% to €73.2 million ($79.2 million); and mechanical royalties on physical media, down 18.4% to €44.7 million ($48.4 million). (These currency conversions were calculated using the average Euros-to-dollars exchange rate for 2023, which was 1.082, which happens to be the rate as of April 8 as well.)