Commercial music artists: are they really that much better than indie artists?

I am a volunteer at CJSF Radio, the campus radio station for Simon Fraser University. I do a show called jumbalaya every Saturday at 11 am. The CDs of indie musicians I play are often highly skilled. There are many indie music shows at CJSF, including Melodies in Mind, Pirates of the Carribean, and Rad Radio. Compare to many commercial radio stations, I argue that above shows are more exciting.

People in commercial radio allege that having independent artist drive their ratings down. One alleges that the Peak 102.7 FM suffers from low ratings as independent artists get air time. The Peak's latest rating was 3.2, which is far lower than highest rated music radio station, QM-FM at 13.1. However, the Fox had lower ratings than the Peak at 2.9, despite playing mainly commercially established artists.

I once talked to Chris Ronald when he was at CJSF to play at Melodies in Mind. Ronald says he contacted JR-FM multiple times, but his emails were never returned. But he gets air time at CBC Radio.

Let's compare Chris Ronald's freedom to flourish with  Kenny Chesney's Don't happen twice. Chesney is a very accomplished country music artist who has been on JR on numerous occasions.

I don't see much difference in music quality between the two.

Now let's compare Ronald's freedom to flourish to Luke Bryan's  I don't want this night to end.

In some ways I would argue Ronald is a better musician than Bryan.