Songwriters get much of the money they earn from their songs from radio airplay  A hit song is played thousands of times, and the songwriter is paid for each play  Only a fraction of songwriters actually achieve a hit, however, and even fewer manage to write several
Writers of hit songs are often asked to write songs for movie sound tracks, but they sometimes decline, because although such songs frequently become hits, their writers receive single up-front payments rather than continued revenues from radio airplay
Some songs written for movie sound tracks are played on the radio thousands of times.