Radiohead sticks it to the Record companies

OK, so this is out of the ordinary for this blog, but it's still about media.



There's been some media bashing of Radiohead's decision to allow fans to download the latest album for whatever they wanted to pay for it. The numbers showed that 1.2 million people downloaded the album but only 38 percent actually paid for it. And those that did paid an average of $5. That's been called a poor payday and reason not to ever to it again.



So I may be off in the math here, but 38 percent of 1.2 million is 456,000 people. And if those people paid an average of $5, that's $2,280,000 that went directly to the band. Not to the Record companies. And that's the first time this has ever been tried. And that's for low-quality mp3 versions of the music, not the high-quality of the CD that will eventually be hitting the stores.



Seems to me that recording companies should be shaking in their boots right now.

Comments

  1. Brian FullerNovember 9, 2007 at 3:31 AM

    Did you see the ComScore report? 62 percent went for the free download, rather than paying.
    http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9811013-7.html?tag=nefd.pulse
    Radiohead is denying these stax, of course!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Lou CoveyNovember 12, 2007 at 5:43 AM

    Even at the paultry amount of $2.50 average per download, the band still made money.

    When I talk to the indy musicians out in the world, all say the same thing, making CDs doesn't bring in the money. the concerts are where the pay day is. Most recording artists look at CDs and promotional items now. the profit belongs to the recording industry. But if this takes off, we could see a renaissance in music as more musicians begin to make a living off their work.

    ReplyDelete

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