Results from Radiohead’s ‘pay as you’d like’ album
Posted by Evan Fell on November 12, 2007 at 3:29 PM
A study of online sales of “In Rainbows” a new record album from the band Radiohead was conducted by comScore, Inc. a leader in measuring the digital world. The band has challenged tradition by allowing consumers to decide how much to pay for downloading the album off of their official website, or to not pay at all.
The results of the study were obtained from the database of 2 million people who have provided comScore with permission to monitor their online behavior.
The results showed that approximately 2% of downloaders were willing to pay. During October, 1.2 million people worldwide visited the site and a significant amount of those people downloaded the album.
38% of downloaders were willing to pay something for the album. 17% of those people paid less than $4 and 12% paid between $8 and $12. While this is a significant success for Radiohead, it “shows pretty conclusively that the majority of the consumers feel that digital recorded music should be free and is not worth paying for,” says Fred Wilson, managing partner of Union Square Ventures.
Radiohead has accomplished a milestone in the music industry by eliminating much of the profit attrition due to piracy or illegal copying. “Moreover, they have garnered good faith with the music consumer at a time when it’s all the rage to bash the industry and the artists who ally themselves with it. And then you have the reduction in cost of sale, cost of promotion and production. I’d call this a resounding success for Radiohead and music fans everywhere – and a fantastic artistic effort as well,” says Edward Hunter, comScore analyst and part-time songwriter.
While this ‘pay what you’d like’ experiment proved to be a success for Radiohead, Michael Laskow, CEO of TAXI, the world's leading independent A&R (Artist and Repertoire) company points out “I think everybody has overlooked one very important aspect of this, and it doesn't bode well for the future of the music industry.” He notes that Radiohead has been able to build a fan base of millions while being bankrolled by their former label for the past 15 years.
In the coming years the music industry will run out of artists who have been supported by major labels for a long time, allowing them to build a fan base, making it increasingly difficult for new artists to sell their albums with the ‘pay as you’d like’ model.
Source: comScore through Ifra Executive News Source
The results showed that approximately 2% of downloaders were willing to pay. During October, 1.2 million people worldwide visited the site and a significant amount of those people downloaded the album.
38% of downloaders were willing to pay something for the album. 17% of those people paid less than $4 and 12% paid between $8 and $12. While this is a significant success for Radiohead, it “shows pretty conclusively that the majority of the consumers feel that digital recorded music should be free and is not worth paying for,” says Fred Wilson, managing partner of Union Square Ventures.
Radiohead has accomplished a milestone in the music industry by eliminating much of the profit attrition due to piracy or illegal copying. “Moreover, they have garnered good faith with the music consumer at a time when it’s all the rage to bash the industry and the artists who ally themselves with it. And then you have the reduction in cost of sale, cost of promotion and production. I’d call this a resounding success for Radiohead and music fans everywhere – and a fantastic artistic effort as well,” says Edward Hunter, comScore analyst and part-time songwriter.
While this ‘pay what you’d like’ experiment proved to be a success for Radiohead, Michael Laskow, CEO of TAXI, the world's leading independent A&R (Artist and Repertoire) company points out “I think everybody has overlooked one very important aspect of this, and it doesn't bode well for the future of the music industry.” He notes that Radiohead has been able to build a fan base of millions while being bankrolled by their former label for the past 15 years.
In the coming years the music industry will run out of artists who have been supported by major labels for a long time, allowing them to build a fan base, making it increasingly difficult for new artists to sell their albums with the ‘pay as you’d like’ model.
Source: comScore through Ifra Executive News Source
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