Getting access to good content producers is the easy part of running a traditional media company.
The challenges are about control of limited distribution and promotion channels. This is a vicious territory and a zero-sum game. This helps to explain why that space cultivates nasty people. The sort of person who would have no qualms about grinding an artist down as much as possible.
There's an endless supply of naive, highly skilled, high-ego artists who will do anything to get a 'contract' to get access to distribution. Money is not a key motivator to these people, but some might like the traditional media model if it gives their produce an advantage over equally skilled but less connected mindshare competitors. This is particularly true where the performing artist is just a front for a composition and marketing team.
Fasion is an industry with a similar dynamic to media, but even less emphasis on the quality of content. And - surprise surprise - it's famously dominated by a nasty kind of person.
What are these "distribution and promotion channels" limited by?
What you're saying sounds to me like artists don't deserve to get a larger share because what they do simply isn't the most difficult part of actually making money.
At the end of the day it may just be a completely normal function of supply and demand. Many people can easily supply what mainstream radio stations play all day long.
OK, but a new media company wouldn't face any hurdles that established ones don't. It's not like, say, the market of PC operating systems or social networks where you need network effects. What you describe is simply a limited pool of customers.
OK, well if you want to crush the existing guys, I think you'd need to compete in their space, and that means vying for control of channels (while they're still relevant).
If you want to create and sell CDs then you can do this now. I've got friends who self-publish "classical" music performances and make (not much) money from it by getting good reviews in trade magazines and selling CDs at concerts. Or you could give your music away and sell mugs and tshirts and tickets to performances.
Or there's the model that city-based orchestras do - make margin by selling tickets to concerts and having a distribution agreement with a local music shop or radio network for recordings. e.g. http://www.aso.com.au/recordings.html
The challenges are about control of limited distribution and promotion channels. This is a vicious territory and a zero-sum game. This helps to explain why that space cultivates nasty people. The sort of person who would have no qualms about grinding an artist down as much as possible.
There's an endless supply of naive, highly skilled, high-ego artists who will do anything to get a 'contract' to get access to distribution. Money is not a key motivator to these people, but some might like the traditional media model if it gives their produce an advantage over equally skilled but less connected mindshare competitors. This is particularly true where the performing artist is just a front for a composition and marketing team.
Fasion is an industry with a similar dynamic to media, but even less emphasis on the quality of content. And - surprise surprise - it's famously dominated by a nasty kind of person.