Paris, France. Photo Credit: Aurora Song
Due in part to continued international collections growth, France’s Society of Authors, Composers and Publishers of Music (SACEM) distributed a little over €1.5 billion (currently $1.77 billion) last year.
That’s according to SACEM’s newly released 2025 annual report, which identified total collections of $2.01 billion/€1.71 billion (up 6% year over year). An all-encompassing online category (including streaming) accounted for 43% of the sum, against roughly 27% between both concerts and background music.
Additionally, TV as well as radio made up 18% of collections, compared to 7% for a narrowly defined international category and a combined 6% for private copying and other phono/video sources.
On the “narrowly defined” front, across-the-board international collections, some of which were evidently grouped elsewhere in the segment-by-segment breakdown, cracked $995 million/€845 million in 2025 (up 13% from 2024).
“Currently, almost 40% of our members’ music streaming royalties are collected directly from international markets,” SACEM added.
Meanwhile, domestic collections finished at $1.01 billion/€859 million, for a more modest 1% YoY uptick.
As for SACEM’s 2025 distributions, the initially mentioned total specifically came in at €1.502 billion, up 9% from 2024, and reached 663,000 recipients. And at the collections-distributions intersection, the 175-year-old entity touted an expense-to-revenue ratio of 9.8%, “one of the lowest in the world.”
In general, various CMOs and PROs have been making a point of emphasizing their strong financials and the implied operational-efficiency improvements behind the results. However, SACEM provided a comparatively large number of details here.
“Thanks to our growing reliance on new, dedicated tools for audio-visual data collection,” SACEM disclosed, “processed data has increased by 144% over the past year.” Furthermore, “processing volume across all platforms (downloads, music streaming and video-on-demand services) reached a staggering 50 billion lines of processed declaration data.”
Plus, 2025 saw the CMO gradually implement “a private generative AI system”; deploy “a number of updates to our IT systems, including decommissioning our legacy mainframe”; and migrate its rights-management platform to a cloud-based solution billed as “ten times more efficient for a fraction of the price.”
Also in its stat-heavy annual report, SACEM noted welcoming 13,500 members (4.7% being publishers) in 2025. As for where international members (not solely those who joined last year) call home, 35% reside in Europe, against 24% for MENA and 23% for Africa, according to the resource.
“Our performance in 2025 is proof that the strategy we have adopted is a sound one, based not only on digital and international expansion, but even more so on the role we play in fostering creativity throughout France,” SACEM CEO Cécile Rap-Veber said in part.
“Today, artificial intelligence marks a turning point. Just as we did with streaming platforms over fifteen years ago, we have set our sights on partnering with AI providers to ensure a fair and protective framework for creators. And 2026 will be a pivotal year in this regard, driven by ongoing legislative developments,” the longtime SACEM higher-up proceeded.
