Hey, You’re the Ones Who Said It Was Up to Us …
by John Paczkowski
Posted on November 6, 2007 at 12:01 AM PT
Depending on which side of the music industry you sit, the pay-what-you-like pricing plan under which Radiohead chose to release its new album, “In Rainbows,” is either another not-quite-killing blow to established music-industry business models or an ill-conceived, money-losing gimmick.
According to research outfit comScore, about 1.2 million people visited Radiohead’s “In Rainbows” Web site during the first 29 days of October and many of them chose to download the album. But only 38% were willing to pay for it. Of those, about 17% paid between a penny and $4; 12% paid between $8 and $12; 6% paid between $4.01 and $8; and 4% paid between $12 and $20.
In the end, the average amount paid for “In Rainbows” under the band’s “honesty box” pricing policy was roughly $2.26 per download.
“The stories to date about the ‘In Rainbows’ pick-your-price download offer have been much more optimistic,” said Fred Wilson, managing partner of Union Square Ventures. “I paid $5 and had no reluctance whatsoever to take out my card and pay. It’s a fantastic record, the best thing they’ve done in years. This shows pretty conclusively that the majority of music consumers feel that digital recorded music should be free and is not worth paying for. That’s a large group that can’t be ignored and its time to come up with new business models to serve the freeloader market.”
That’s certainly one way of looking at it. But there’s another as well: 38% of listeners who could have downloaded the album for free paid for it instead. And that’s something, isn’t it?
Comments
Well, not being familiar with Radiohead, I paid Zero. But I’ll send them some money later if I like it.
How’s that? Did I skew the numbers?
Posted by Eric Welch at November 6th, 2007 at 9:44 amI think it’s a bit too early to evaluate the outcome of this operation. There are indeed people like Eric above who would be willing to pay afterwards. There are also the people didn’t know Radiohead’s work and who just took this oportunity to check it out at zero cost. And there are also all the fans who would want to buy the actual CD, but would be happy to listen to it in advance.
I’d wait to check the sales of the physical album to draw any conclusions.
Posted by Guillaume Laurent at November 6th, 2007 at 12:21 pm> Cut to Peter Jennings: “Let’s face it, all of us here at NBC News will miss reporting on this brilliant, powerful, sexy man who just doesn’t like to pay more than $7 on a haircut.”
I know that Bill Gates retirement is a pretty important event, but I doubt it’s powerful enough to bring back a tv journalist who died two years ago
.
Posted by Guillaume Laurent at January 9th, 2008 at 6:02 amthere seem to be a problem, this comment was meant to be posted on the post about Gates’s last keynote at the CES : http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.....gatesnote/
Posted by Guillaume Laurent at January 9th, 2008 at 6:09 am> Cut to Peter Jennings: “Let’s face it, all of us here at NBC News will miss reporting on this brilliant, powerful, sexy man who just doesn’t like to pay more than $7 on a haircut.”
I know that Bill Gates retirement is a pretty important event, but I doubt it’s powerful enough to bring back a tv journalist who died two years ago
.
Posted by Guillaume Laurent at January 9th, 2008 at 6:10 amnope, failed again
Posted by Guillaume Laurent at January 9th, 2008 at 6:10 am