Radiohead’s Album Download Experiment Flops
The ‘decide what you want to pay’ experiment by Radiohead fails !
For those unaware Radiohead shocked the music world a while back with an experiment.
They offered their latest album as a download and you could decide what you wanted to pay for it, if anything !
3 Out of 5 Paid Nothing At All !
They are a huge band with a loyal fan base and some of these ‘played the game’ by paying something which held the figures up a little but with figures released saying 62% paid absolutely nothing it has to be deemed as something of a flop.
The average price paid was reportedly $6 or about £2.90 you need big sales to make that work !
Even being Radiohead and mammoth worldwide publicity it was only downloaded 1.2 million times, nothing in internet terms. As an example the Girlfriend video by Avril Lavine has been watched 58 million times on YouTube alone !
The experiment was watched with eager eyes in the music industry and was being heralded as the way forward though commentators are now back-pedalling from that position.
The huge amount of publicity generated and the number of fans means Radiohead will not be claiming social security but it has proved to be an impossibility for lesser or unknown bands to consider replicating.
Is it a surprise ?
Well surely not !
Human nature being what it is who wants to pay for something they can get free ?
What also proved interesting was the huge demand for so called illegal downloads as well.
Peer to Peer networks all had the album and downloads were considerable in number.
This must surely prove to the music industry that they are in real trouble if they don’t wise up and move forward with new ideas and innovation.
A new generation of music lovers will not be going into record shops and buying CDs.
The industry needs to find a way of tempting them into paying something somehow or monetizing the product in another way.
Personally, I see innovative new music suffering as it becomes less and less viable to promote and record new bands.
Many of the bands are now making money solely on touring, a complete reverse of the past, which is all well and good if you can fill stadiums at £90 a ticket but not much use to anyone else.
Should we be surprised that people don’t want to pay for something they can get for nothing ?
Jordan said,
November 7, 2007 @ 8:43 am
RC
“Should we be surprised that people don’t want to pay for something they can get for nothing ?”
Hell no! Bring it on! We get sc***ed for so much these days, something for nothing with no strings, makes a damn change.
Jordan
Rod said,
November 7, 2007 @ 9:18 am
Jordan
I think that’s what a lot of people think !
If the record companies stopped trying to charge £15+ for a lot of CDs then perhaps the temptation to download FOC would decrease
Best
RC
Mdan said,
November 7, 2007 @ 6:11 pm
If anything, the Radiohead experiment shows how false the whole ‘music is too expensive, record companies are too greedy’ argument is. Given the option of paying even token amounts for the album, most downloaders still opted to pay nothing.
Rod said,
November 7, 2007 @ 6:24 pm
Mdan
thanks for the comment and welcome to the site.
You make a very good point. I think most people look for excuse as to why they use bittorrents etc …
They’re already millionaires
CDs are a rip off etc etc
When it actually comes down to it most want something for nothing.
Also the more of it you do the less likely you are ever to buy a CD or DVD
The problem comes when there is nobody left actually paying !
Then what ?
Cheers
Rod
Craig said,
November 11, 2007 @ 5:22 pm
But oddly, it’s believed that Radiohead still made more money this way than they would have had.
How many of those downloads have actually been deleted though?
Mine was, as I didn’t think it was actually worth paying for, but I am grateful that Radiohead offered a free preview.
Rod said,
November 11, 2007 @ 5:39 pm
Craig,
I’m not sure how the finances pan out.
One thing that may back up what you say is that there was no retailer cut.
From what I understand that largest cut of the retail price of a CD sold on the high street actually goes to the shop.
I did read somewhere once that artists get, depending on their deal of course, about £1 from an album sale.
I don’t blame you for deleting it either
Rod