[AnthonyMouse]

It's worse than that.

The big record labels effectively have a lock on popular music. If you want to play any of it you have to deal with them. But now what are your incentives, right? You pay them whatever it is, high fees, to play one of their songs, so you want to avoid playing their songs. Play an indie artist who will give you a better deal because you're buying direct and cutting out the middle man. Play one of the labels' expensive songs if the customer specifically requests it, but not otherwise.

The record labels don't like that. Competition? They want to set up a scheme where their music is what's getting played and indies are screwed, so new artists have to sign with them to be heard. So if you want the back catalog for anything less than a bankruptcy-inducing fee, you have to take the payola and let the labels choose what you play, and they're not interested in letting people discover independent artists.

And then which of their own songs do they demand get played? The artists that signed a one-sided contract giving the label most of the money are going on loop.

This industry has needed a serious antitrust investigation for decades.