Things they somehow managed to avoid......

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

IMO, you can't get more conventional programming than Mozart, Haydn (and Beethoven). So if fewer performances are making way for lesser-known composers and works, that's a good thing.

But they're not. They're making way for "Viennese Nights", "Hurray for Hollywood", "Classics by Candlelight", "The Four Seasons Plus". "Fewer" performances of Mozart's 27th Symphony doesn't mean more performances of Fifine at the Fair or Sun Treader or Balakirev's Second Piano Concerto - it just means (as you say in your second paragraph) more performances of the Jupiter and the Concerto d'Aranjuez.

[teamsaint]

interesting thoughts FF.

Information on attendances at various types of events, and for sales of CDs/numbers of Downloads, are hard to come by.

This , though, has some very interesting material, although not directly dealing with sales, or attendances for specific types of classsical music

http://timbenjamin.com/writing/

(the piece at the bottom, The Economics of New Music).
I have only glanced through it, but one or two things that jumped out at me:

Benjamin suggests that the make up of classical audiences aren't really slanted towards older people, but in fact reflect the general age distribution of the population, and that it is other audiences (such as pop) which are unrepresentative.
also , he suggests that the driver for people to engage in classical or New music is general education, not specifically musical eduction.

But there is a lot there, and interesting stuff it is.