Been wondering how much the artist gets every time his or her song gets played on the radio ? More the one hit wonder than big names really .Can one massive worldwide hit make someone enough money to live on for the rest of their natural ?Seem to remember the song Little Arrows by Leapy Lee (1968 way before most of you were born!) made him enough money that he could live comfortably on an island in the Med !Also Eddie Grant had a few hits think he lives a decent life in Barbados now .
Depends if you wrote it or not I think. Different royalties for writer of the song and for playing a particular recording.
So if you wrote something that was covered by lots of people, possibly better than if you had a true one hit wonder, and certainly better than if you were a one hit wonder but someone else wrote the song.
I think that's why there is a certain amount of tension in some bands about who gets writing credits.
Means if you write something obscure then it gets covered, you can make decent money - I bet the original writer of 'you got the love' is doing okay after it got high in the charts in the 90s with the source and recently with Florence and the Machine.
Radio airplay won't generate megabucks unless the station is in an MCPS/PRS sample period, (it's complicated). TV on the other hand is always reporting its usage back to Equity who then use black magic to work out how much you should get.