Originally Posted by Urban Hatemonger

It's not the case that they are exceptions because they're not , it's practical business sense.

If you can find an popular independent band that sells maybe 200,000 - 300,000 then you have virtually that many sales guaranteed you budget to sell that many albums and if & when they do you make a healthy profit , anything more than that is a bonus.

Compare that to making up your own boyband spending huge amounts of money on advertising to make them known , because you'll need it with them having no audience , throw in a load of songwriters , choreographers , stylists , producers that all need paying and then you hope you sell a couple of million albums to break even.

Sure if it does take off you get the bigger return but the first option is the less risky.