The Second Stage Of The Radiohead Experiment
from the some-good,-some-bad dept
Certainly an awful lot has been written about Radiohead's experiments with new business models, but it's starting to crank up again, as the band gets ready to release the new album on CD. While some fans felt "betrayed" by this, the band had made it quite clear from the beginning that this was the strategy. However, it's likely that we'll now see plenty of stories focused on how well the CD sells, as if that will be the key factor in determining whether or not this experiment qualifies as a "success."That, however, is the wrong way to look at things. It's the "old business model" way of looking at things, where the key point is how many CDs were sold. That's doesn't much matter any more. The band has supposedly made quite a lot of money from selling the MP3s directly, and the attention garnered by the marketing stunt will likely allow them to sell more concert tickets at higher prices (and, yes, the band is about to start touring). Plenty of people who knew little about the band now know a lot more and are talking about and listening to the new album. At this point, no matter what happens with the CD, you'd have to say that the experiment has been quite a success.
That said, it doesn't appear as though the band fully embraces the economics impacting the music industry these days. That's because the band has decided to stop offering the downloads off its site as it gears up to try to sell the CDs. That seems like a rather pointless and shortsighted move. The music is already out there and being listened to widely. If you look on sites like Last.fm and Hype Machine, Radiohead clearly dominates. Continuing to offer fans an option in terms of how they want to consume and purchase the music only makes sense. It's not as if the music is suddenly not going to be available on various file sharing sites. So, really, all this move does is limit the ways fans can give the band money -- and that doesn't make much sense.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: business models, radiohead, recording industry
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
They got paid.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Like alway...
Yep, nuff said.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Like alway...
Yep, nuff said.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Experiment
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Experiment
It might go to show the same thing that the Elvis co did.
Way back, when Disney released Alladin, the Elvis tunes were licensed for next to no money. This is still an on-going theme. Every time there is Elvis music in a Disney music not much money is made.
What happens is that there a little kids out there singing Elvis songs, and then they get interested in the man the music and everything else. Obviously, for every dollar 'lost' they gained a lot more.
So Radio Head pretty have pretty much done the same thing. Every time someone listens to their song for free/ or cheap, either they sell more albums(or not, wait to see), or they recoup that in ticket sales for their tour.
And really what is the difference between 7 or 8 million from album sales?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Radiohead
...I will give them this, they got their name out there. I haven't heard from Radiohead since "Creep", and I'm delighted that their new album is soooooo good. I then went out and got other Radiohead stuff (Radiohead, Unkle and Thom Yorke's solo work) because I enjoyed the new album so much.
If they would have just stuck with the original plan, I would have been a much a much happier consumer. ORRRR, if they would have offered their older works in the same fashion...
Ah well, they got me with it. I'm sure others were suckerered, but I guess that was the point. Get the consumers listening. Once it's in their iPods, they'll buy other shit.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Radiohead
I'm just wondering how their change of business plan affects your enjoyment of In Rainbows. Does it make the album worse? Does it actually change how the music sounds? They can't take the album away from you - how does this affect your enjoyment as a consumer in any way other than some fuzzy future projections which Radiohead has no control over?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Radiohead
I don't understand this comment. They made it quite clear from the moment they announced the download offering that a CD release would follow.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Radiohead
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Might be more at work here...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Might be more at work here...
This is the only smart comment in this thread. First thing that popped into my head as well when I saw this. A way for less smart techy people to understand it would be to equate the money spent on hosting / bandwidth costs to money they might have spent on a CD 'giveaway' / any other promotion costs. This approach allows more people the chance to hear the entire album instead of maybe one song that MIGHT get played on terrestrial radio spending that "website" money on traditional promotion.
The economics of this are a new take on an idea that I think everyone can understand, and I think the record will show different bands taking this approach to new exciting levels. I'm sure a smarter person than I could come up with a couple of formulas to follow, simply by looking at things logically.
(Production budget - cost to build website + $ from people choosing to pay for download)
/
cost per month for hosting for desired amount of traffic //-- a 'monthly special'? free downloads stop when ratio dips below a precalculated amount.
=
# of months free downloads will be available
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Radiohead - the backlash
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
What a joke. Have they toured yet? Have they drawn more people than they would have the traditional way? Can you compare the CD sales to the traditional way?
So without any data or information, you declare success. Who do you think you are, GWB? Mission accomplished?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
The point was that they made millions already *just* on the downloads. CD sales and tour revenue become gravy. So, yes, you absolutely can call it a success.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
From the beginning
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Considering Radiohead has not released ANY information on the sales of the downloads, you must really think you are GWB.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Your all talking about it and I'll bet most of you are planning on giving them more money for CD's or concert tickets or merchandise because of the album.
Isn't that successful?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Sure, a band that has already had millions of marketing dollars spent on building their brand is going to do OK. Hell, the NYT article alone was tens of thousands of dollars of free PR.
Does the model work with a no name brand and no free PR? Not once or twice, but regularly.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Plenty of people?
Are there really people out there who (a) don't know much about Radiohead, and (b) heard about this project and were motivated to check it out?
I'm sure there were a few, like #10 - but "plenty"? What are you basing this on?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
RE: Signed to a label...
Colin- The record label (XL Recordings) does not need to worry about the parallel system as the initial Radiohead downloads were offered in a low quality bitrate (160 kpb), which pale in comparison to CD. Not only that, the label saves millions in marketing dollars for buzz that the Pay What You Want campaign generated.
Ultimately, though, Radiohead came out as a giant winner. They made money off the digital downloads (an estimated $10 million in the first week alone!), they made money from their record deal, and they're basking in the glory of devising a revolutionary new business model (even if it was a marketing stunt). Regardless of how you feel bout the band or their music, you must admit the marketing campaign was absolutely brilliant.
Read more about Radiohead's "In Rainbows" on my blog: http://www.stagetwoconsulting.com/blog
[ link to this | view in chronology ]