radio listens never made money ā¦ they gave exposure ā¦ go play live, build a following, sell t-shirts and music at the venue, maybe drive enough interest to have people pay for a couple of downloads.
But, %99.99999999999999999 of that stuff is total poop and the only audience they will ever achieve is girl friends and moms. In other words there is a good reason they canāt make money. Wanting to make money in any industry doesnāt give you the right to make money in that industry. Get over it. Get a job, or learn your trade.
9,000 plays usually means the song was probably played as a ābecause you listen to xā and half the time or more probably wasnāt even listened to. I know for the short period of time I used pandora the suggested songs were terrible and things Iād never listen to. I used Return to Forever as a root artist and got fān Coldplay in the list. Most of the other suggestions were as bad or worse. And, the few songs that came from artists that might hold my interest were the overplayed commercial radio stuff that Iām trying to avoid.
Anyhow, just more people who are mad because they canāt make a living because working is hard.
radio listens never made money
Well I have at least one friend, and several acquaintances for whom that isnāt true.
And one of those bought a very nice house on the back of royalty payments for a song of his.
It didnāt hurt that it was a Christmas #1 
In general you canāt equate royalties = radio play. There are exceptions of course. When it turns into millions of plays ā¦ sure. It can add up. But, that kind of royalty, and I would bet that for the song you mention, was inclusive of much broader song usage. Again, there are a large number of exceptions.
My point was, as a musician if you think radio play = income, you are in for a rude surprise. There are people who make a good living off TV, Movie and add music royalties. But, again that is a difficult road.
The fact that internet radio pays even less than terrestrial radio isnāt much of a surprise to me. Again, tour tour tour tour tour ā¦ Eventually you might get a song that can move the dial enough to toss some cash in the bank account. A few thousand plays might as well be 0.
Finally, the tone of my post was overly negative. Sorry about that. The endless whining about the industry vs the artist gets old.