New york radio ratings

[boombox4]

What do you mean by "trouble?" Financially they're making more money now than they did ten years ago thanks to streaming royalties. Record labels make no direct money from radio airplay. So they focus all their attention getting their music made and placed on streaming services. The problem is they have to find a way to push people to that music, and radio can do that. So the end result is you have some artists (the ones who get airplay) making a disproportionate amount of money, compared to those who don't get airplay.

Here's a look at the music industry over 40 years:

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/music-industry-sales/

And according to your link, the music industry are presently making less than half of what they made in 2000 (they were making twice as much in 1977) which is part of my point. Any industry that is making less than half the money it made just 20 years ago is in trouble.

 

[TheBigA]

Any industry that is making less than half the money it made just 20 years ago is in trouble.

That's one way of looking at it. Their view is they've completely changed their business model. They've gone from a physical sales business to a business based on digital royalties and rights. The costs of that business are lower. No hard goods to create and distribute, no truckers to pay to get your goods to stores, and no percentages to share with retailers. They also have created several additional revenue streams to make up for losses elsewhere. They feel they hit bottom a few years ago, and things are now on the upswing. And they are so confident that two of the biggest labels are doing IPOs for stock.

Now how does this relate to radio? In the old days, radio airplay was desired to help labels sell product. Now airplay is desired to create awareness for product, so listeners will stream more music by those artists on their own time. At the same time, radio stations are creating their own digital business with streaming content and podcasts. As with record labels, the digital content makes a lot less money than they'd make with their air signal. But the digital content costs much less to create. Plus it's growing, while the air signal is declining.