Radio station can be playing to 5 million people and you get nothing unless you wrote or produced the song. if your band isn't well know YouTube can get the best way to get known and make some cash.
The biggest problem with the whole music industry is that the production company wants too much money.
When CDs first came out it was about $7 dollars a cd. then they got greedy and wanted $20 and at the same time the internet became a viable solution to music needs. I quit buying music when the price got stupid. I have stacks or CDs, cassettes and vinyl, but dont use it any longer.
Movies is the same thing. I dont own a VHS and I gave away over a thousand movies that I had paid for because VHS quality sucks balls. I probably have over 1k of movies on dvd that I wont watch because the quality is horrible. I'm not replacing all my movies for 10 to 25 dollars a pop, only to have them come out with some new version of whatever in a couple years.
I'd buy all my music if it was under 10 dollars an album for the stuff I like, but I wouldn't give a cent for a lot of s***. there is so much music out there I wouldn't even download for free. Buying albums helps the artist, but puts mass money int he producers pocket more than anything. best deal a largely produced album ever had was the 2 Ace of Bass song writers, they got almost $2 for every CD sold, but the band got to split 50 cents.
Same goes for movies... I watch 5 minutes of a lot of movies only to delete the s***.
baseball is all I actually pay for... unless you count concerts. I don't mind paying 100 dollars to see a big concert( which is what it costs here.) or pay the $20 dollar cover charge to see a gig in a local club. at least I know the money is going to the artist and not to the production company.