I don’t think any artists of his age are going to have radio pop hits.
At least MK doesn’t have to pay for studio time.
Yes he has.
It is his studio but he pays for his time there as any other artist. It's true that is money that goes from one pocket to the other, but is something he needs to do because when he's recording there are professionals working there with a salary and that salary needs an income to be paid
I used to work in a hotel who belonged to a company that used the hotel facilities for meetings with rooms and lunch and dinners for people at the meetings and the company paid for all the services like any other client because all the services they were using had people working with a salary, if you don't pay for those services, you are loosing money, if you pay for it, at least the hotel doesn't loose money, and in the end is money going from one pocket to the other, and if you use other facilities, you are giving the money to someone else, this way you give the money to yourself.
Maybe, really you or I have no idea about his arrangments. He maybe books it at quiet times to minimise losses.
It is a commercial studio, very famous and prestigious, all the time he's using it, other customers who would pay money can't use it, so paying for his own studio time is the logical thing to do. It's not like his house studio in Holland Park Mews, this is a commercial studio, and using it at quite times, yes, probably he would do that with Studio 2, which it is used mainly, as Guy says, to mix film music in all kind of surrounds for big films, but Studio 1 is always pretty busy and it would be more difficult to find that quiet times, specially since he has to hire also his musicians and coordinate all of that. However, even in quiet times, he has to pay for all the technicians and also Guy's salary, so he has to pay for his own studio time even on quiet times as he would be causing expenses, with no income, which would be bad for the Studio economy.
I don't know for sure about his arrangements, of course, but being a commercial studio, I'm pretty sure I'm right with this.