Low pound boosts MCPS-PRS.

The MCPS-PRS Alliance is cashing in on sterling's declining value abroad with rising overseas income helping to make up the shortfall from falling physical music sales.

While physical product is set to slip by year's end to being only the Alliance's fourth biggest income contributor, international income is heading the other way and is forecast to rise by 11.6% across the entire year from #121m in 2007 to #135m. This would put it #4m ahead of physical product, where annual revenues are predicted to drop from #152m to #131m.

Figures announced last week revealed international income increased in the first nine months of the year by around 13% from #83m to #94m with the sharpest growth coming from the smaller societies. Revenue from the top 20 societies rose 11%, but the rise was 39% from more than 150 other societies the Alliance collects from.

Alliance CEO Steve Porter says exchange rates were the biggest factor in this 13% jump. "Yes, we're getting lots of money coming in from all the usual suspects and the rate of growth in the smaller territories is higher than the larger ones, but we're benefiting from weak sterling," he says.

The part the dimished value of the pound is playing in these improved figures is coupled with what Porter describes as a "continued focus in making sure we're getting as much money as we can from all the places we can".

He add, "With the larger societies we're making sure we get the right amounts coming through and the right share of the revenue and sharing some initiatives and this is extended to some of the smaller territories."

The rise in international income helped overall revenues for the first nine months of the ...