The British group Radiohead made headlines last month when it announced that it would let fans pay whatever they wanted to download its new album “In Rainbows.”
So what did people pay?
About 62 percent of those who downloaded the album at the Radiohead Web site last month paid nothing at all. Of the 38 percent who paid, 17% paid $4 or less, 6% paid between $4.01 and $8, 12% paid between $8.01 and $12, and 4% paid more than $12.
Do these figures make the band’s experiment a success or a failure?
Music executives say it’s a failure but I’m not so sure that’s true from the band’s point of view. Bands generally don’t pocket much more than a couple bucks from the $15 you spend on a typical CD, so if a band can average $2 per download and attract the same number of listeners, it should come out about even.
But “In Rainbows” attracted FAR more listeners than a typical Radiohead album, so the band may well have made more cash than usual. Better still, by encouraging broader listening, Radiohead may also make more from future concerts and other income sources.
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