Labels and publishers have expensive and powerfull frameworks to view and analyze real world engagement with artists. Not many people are talking about this outside of the industry.
These tools include a BIG range of impulses, like mentions on social media(whatever it is, likes, @ mentions, videos containing an artist, followers, etc etc), these frameworks are usually connected worldwide to serious media broadcasters like radio stations to get reports who and when was played and the reach of the station, mentions by hard print media, mentions by TV....internal marketing efforts (for example if warner puts up a huge billboard somewhere, you can approximately say how many eyes it will get) and lots of other stuff that I can't come up with on the spot.
In other words, they have good data to support decisions which might not seem obvious to us.
Also, if nothing else applies, maybe they want to push their presence in the area for future returns, who knows.