France’s music publishing market was up 6% in 2024 to €597 million boosted by strong revenues in Digital, Public Performance and Live

18 December 2025 - Press release

The music publishing market in France has posted record revenues of €597 million in 2024, up 6% compared to 2023, according to the yearly report ‘Focus on Music Publishing in France 2024′, unveiled today by music publishers’ associations CSDEM (pop repertoire), CEMF (classical repertoire) and ULM (production music).

The French publishing market covers three main sectors: Pop, Classical and Production Music. Pop represented 85% of the turnover of respondents to the survey in 2024, with Production Music accounting for 9% of total revenue and Classical Music at 6% of turnover.

French publishers’ main source of revenue comes from rights society SACEM, with €335 million distributed to publishers in 2024, or 56% of the total, up 9% compared to the previous year, thanks to sustained increases in digital rights (+17%) as well as rights from live performances and background music.

Revenues collected directly by publishers included mainly synchronisation rights (from France and abroad), which reached €105 million in 2024, up 3% over the previous year, and foreign rights, which remained stable in 2024 at €78 million.

The French music publishing market is the third largest in the world after the US and the UK, according to International Confederation of Music Publishers (ICMP) in its inaugural ‘ICMP Music Publishing Markets Analysis 2025’.

Juliette Metz, President of CSDEM and CEO of music publishing company Encore Merci, commented: “Year after year, the French music publishing market has shown sustained growth, with the exception of the years impacted by the Covid crisis, and 2024 is no exception. These figures picture a dynamic publishing sector, full of diversity both with regards to the size of companies or the repertoires that are exploited. Our members keep signing new talent and looking after heritage songwriters and composers. We remain cautiously optimistic about the future due to the potential impact of AI on our business.”

Added Metz: “However, smaller companies remain under pressure, and the development of new talent is a fragile and uncertain model: since 2021, the share of new talent in publishers’ total revenues has fallen by 19% and represents just 8% of total publishing revenues in 2024.”

Anne Jouanneau, President of CSDEM’s research committee and Deputy General Manager at Sony Music Publishing France, said: “We have reached historic levels at €597m. All market segments, except classical, performed well, from public performance and SACEM collections to synch and export.”

Here are some other highlights of the report:
- Increasing investment through advances
In this favorable context, publishers kept investing in talent with an 11% increase in advances paid by publishers in 2024 compared to 2023, confirming publishers' commitment to pre-financing creative projects. The balance of unrecouped advances reached €91 million at the end of 2024, representing an 11% increase compared to the end of 2023.

- Sustained signing of new talent
French publishers have continued to invest in new talent, which represented 77% of new contracts in 2024 and 72% of contracts signed in 2023. However, the development of new talent remains a fragile and uncertain endeavour. Since 2021, the share of new talent in publishers' total revenue has decreased by 19% and represented 8% of total publishing revenue in 2024. Advances paid to new talent represented 24% of total advances paid by publishers in 2024.

- Production music holds on
Production music has grown moderately by 4% to reach €48 million in 2024, thanks to the growth in foreign rights (+2%) and public performance rights (+10%). While synchronisation rights remain stable, digital rights are growing strongly (+25%).

- Classical revenue under pressure
With revenue of €27 million in 2024, the classical music market declined by 7.5% year-on-year. Revenues from training methods and classical music scores remained stable at €9.7 million, while revenues from SACEM, reprography and grand rights declined. A full report (in French) is available here. An English translation of the full report will be available later in 2026.


Methodology: The ‘Focus on Music Publishing in France 2024’ is based on 2024 data compiled by research company Xerfi, with a panel of 47 respondents, representing a total of 810 companies (against 691 companies a year before), accounting for 69.3% of the total rights distributed by France music rights society SACEM (against 68.6% a year prior). The report focuses mainly on economic, financial and management data for the year 2024. A questionnaire was sent to all CSDEM membership, with questions centered around five main themes: general characteristics of the company, workforce, financial results, investments and external financing.

For more information, contact Juliette Metz at csdem@csdem.org