Changes in the music biz (again)
“Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world ?” – 1 Cor. 1:20
“God had written, not so much a poem, but rather a play; a play he had planned as perfect, but which had necessarily been left to human actors and stage-managers, who had since made a great mess of it”. – GK Chesterton
Three in five people ‘didn’t pay a cent’ for the Radiohead album, 62% of fans didn’t pay for ‘In Rainbows’, undermining hopes that ‘honesty boxes’ could be the future for online music. Thom Yorke, the lead singer of Radiohead. Fans paid less than was previously thought for the latest album, ‘In Rainbows’.
Radiohead’s grand experiment in ‘honesty box’ music sales may have gone a little flat after a report found that three in five people downloading the band’s latest album did not pay a cent for it. Of the 1.2 million people who have downloaded In Rainbows since it was released last month, 62 per cent did not pay anything, and 12 per cent accounted for more than 52 per cent of the revenue from sales.
The average price paid was $6 (£2.90) globally, but this figure was propped up by the 12 per cent who were willing to pay between $8 to $12 (£3.90 to £5.80) – the approximate cost of downloading an album from a retail service like iTunes, the report, by comScore, concluded. American music-lovers were the most generous, paying on average $8.05 (£3.89). Outside the US, the average amount parted with was $4.64 (£2.24).
ComScore tracks – to the last detail – the online behaviour of more than two million people worldwide, so its figures are not based on a survey. Shortly after the album’s release nearly a month ago, online polls suggested that the average purchase was £4.
At the time, the band’s decision was viewed by some as a future direction for the industry, which has struggled to combat declining sales in the face of widespread illegal downloading. Other prominent musicians, including Trent Reznor from the band Nine Inch Nails, praised Radiohead for experimenting with a model, and Guy Hands, head of the private equity firm Terra Firma which recently bought EMI called the move “a wake-up call which we should all welcome and respond to.”
But labels and other industry representatives expressed disappointment in the wake of yesterday’s report, saying that while a band with an established fan base was able to take such risks, it was not an option for new bands, who still benefit from the support of labels. Tim Dellow, co-founder of Transgressive, a smaller, London-based label, said: “It’s depressing. Radiohead might have made a killing off this, but it was largely because of their fanbase built up over time with the help of a major label and its distribution and marketing channels.” “Most new acts don’t have fans who would shell out £40 for the box set, and any profits (from this type of venture) would be impractical for making a living out of music.” Mike Driver, editor of DrownedinSound, a music news site, said that younger bands would find the honesty box method “unlikely to raise their profile any more than making a couple of tracks available on MySpace.”
From Times Online
November 6, 2007
I would tentatively conclude that Radiohead’s move was not a failure, it is quite like the band….. simply good experimentation. It brings back some fond memories I had of Keith Green, an “over the edge” Gospel artist that I worked with in the late seventies and early eighties. His shows, his life style and everything about him challenged the status quo, he offered his records free to anyone who would write in and ask for them and just pay what they could afford, accepting nothing if they did not want to send in anything. A majority ordered Keith’s records and paid nothing, but there was that minority that sent in more than they would have paid for the record at retail prices. In the end he became one of the most popular and respected artists of his time, bringing in more revenue from his records than he could have ever brought in though standard distribution. I am not against the major labels out there, but feel the industry is going to have to reinvent itself to survive, the times they are a changin’…………….
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