Growth in revenue from abroad and online despite: Covid-19 hit authors and music publishers hard, and gave TONO significant revenue drops in most areas in 2020. Revenue ended at 712,4 million, down 7,61 percent from 2019.
/ 05/05/2021 / Willy Martinsen– The decline is primarily due to the fact that the 2019 results were driven up by a significant compensation settlement of NOK 100,5 million following a legal dispute with RiksTV, and that TONO was hit hard in 2020 by Covid-19-related revenue losses in most areas, says Cato Strøm, CEO of TONO.
The largest percentage decrease came from the cinema sector. Empty cinemas only provided TONO with NOK 5,2 million in revenue, 59 percent lower than the previous year. Revenues from revues, tourism and the catering industry, shops and shopping malls, etc. also decreased significantly. Cancelled and postponed concerts resulted in concert revenues of only NOK 58,6 million, which is 41,7 percent lower than the previous year when they were NOK 100,5 million.
– Much of the concert revenue in 2020 came from concerts held before the Covid-19 crisis, including in 2019. The result is the lowest concert revenue for TONO since 2013, which hits our members very hard as TONO revenue from concerts is an important source of income for many of our members. Fortunately, the state subsidy of NOK 30,5 million will cushion some of the effect of this on our concert settlement in the autumn, says Strøm.
Some areas grew. Covid-19 led to a strong increase in subscribers to Netflix, HBO and the other movie streaming services, which increased TONO's revenue from this area by 33,5 percent compared to 2019. It is also worth noting that TONO has never had greater total foreign revenue than in 2020. The growth is particularly driven by streaming services such as Spotify.
- Our composers, lyricists and songwriters are being listened to abroad like never before. It is the streaming services in particular that are driving this revenue, and which have made the online area by far the most profitable revenue area abroad. This is followed by TV, radio and then concerts. TONO's foreign revenue increased by a full 46 percent, ending at 95,7 million kroner, says Strøm.
There are still some gaps in the joy, says Strøm:
– Although almost 19,000 of TONO's members had foreign income in 2020, it is undeniable that it is an economy with many participants and a few winners. Furthermore, we expect a decline in the global origination economy as a result of Covid-19, and this will most likely also be felt in TONO members' income from abroad throughout 2021, says Strøm.
More and more people are signing management contracts with TONO. During 2020, TONO gained 1678 new members. 18 of these were music publishers. In comparison, TONO gained 1,650 new members in 2019, of which 12 were music publishers. At the end of 2020, TONO had management contracts with 35,910 rights holders. The membership consists of only 20 percent female members, although it is somewhat more evenly distributed among new members. Among the 1,678 new members, 25 percent were women. During 2020, TONO's members registered 17 percent more musical works in TONO than the previous year, a total of 35,573.
TONO's annual and transparency report will be published on tono.no around May 25th.
About TONO:
TONO was founded in 1928 and is a non-profit cooperative owned and managed by authors (composers and lyricists) and music publishers, and which manages the economic copyrights in the music they have created on their behalf. TONO grants permission for the use of protected music, for example on radio, TV, the internet, concerts and cinemas for a fee, and transfers its financial results each year to the rights holders in music that has been played publicly. TONO has more than 36,000 members, but also works with millions of authors and music publishers from around the world. TONO gives music creators an economic basis to create new music, and collects and simplifies the licensing of protected music to music users. TONO's turnover in 2020 was kr 712,4 millions.
For more information:
Cato Strøm, CEO of TONO, cato.strom@tono.no, mobile 922 16,319
Willy Martinsen, communications manager at TONO, willy.martinsen@tono.no, mobile 909 65 254
(The case was updated on May 27th because errors had crept into the case that needed to be corrected.)