Simple enough question.

In the US, artists don't earn royalties from airplay, but in countries like the UK, they do.

Does anybody have an article on why this is?

Record labels don't handle radio airplay royalties etc that will be down to the radio companies themselves and the reason why they don't is that they argue that radio airplay is free promotion and makes the artists money by increasing sales which I think is fair enough.

Other countries have different laws that's all

In the UK, there's an actual organisation called PRS that manage royalties. Sad there isn't one in America.

A lot of artists would probably have longer careers, because their teams earn $$$ from airplay, so even if a song or album doesn't sell copies, it can still make money from radio.

I doubt the $$$ earned from airplay is that significant anyways.

Ed Sheeran gets £6 from every broadcast of The A-Team on national radio in the UK. It adds up.

"National radio?" How many national pop radio stations are there in the UK? I can't imagine there are more than 10-20 (i'll even say 30 for the sake of argument). So lets say they all have him on power rotation, meaning they play his song every hour (also unlikely).

That is only £4323 a week for a prime-time artist with their song at its peak. I imagine other local stations pay lessor amounts, but I cannot see the total surpassing £10000 or so a week at peak. An amount that would have 0 impact for a major artist. All of that is before taxes of course.

You could argue that it would be good for a minor artist who doesn't tour to make them coins, but chances are a minor artist would make a tiny fraction of that amount.




I am not saying artists don't like that little bit of extra money, but I don't see it in any way impacting a career. Money in the music industry has been all about tour for years, and it will continue to be that way.