# Radiohead album - the way forward?



## Ceist Beag (10 Oct 2007)

Has anyone else availed of Radiohead's marketing strategy for their new album? Basically you can download the album direct from their website and you can decide yourself how much you want to pay (between £1 and £100) for it!! Genius I think. Not sure it will work for everyone but for the bigger and even not so big bands, once you can get the word out I think this is a fantastic idea. The only thing I would add to it is that it would be nice if you could preview the album online first but knowing the middle man is cut out and the money goes to the band will mean most decent fans will offer a fair value on the album. Any thoughts?


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## Caveat (10 Oct 2007)

Ceist Beag said:


> Has anyone else availed of Radiohead's marketing strategy for their new album? Basically you can download the album direct from their website and you can decide yourself how much you want to pay (between £1 and £100) for it!! Genius I think. Not sure it will work for everyone but for the bigger and even not so big bands, once you can get the word out I think this is a fantastic idea. The only thing I would add to it is that it would be nice if you could preview the album online first but knowing the middle man is cut out and the money goes to the band will mean most decent fans will offer a fair value on the album. Any thoughts?


 
So, you have a chance of getting an album for £1 and you _still _want to preview it?  

I'm not sure about this. It's an innovative idea from an innovative band but I feel far too many people will simply pay the minimum and thus devalue the album. Radiohead don't need the money but I think ultimately it could encourage meanness and illegal filesharing if other bands don't follow their example. Many bands of course couldn't afford to follow their example.

In short I think yes, a good idea, but I can't imagine a lot of people will be generous about it and I feel it may set a precedent.


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## Tarad (10 Oct 2007)

Great strategy, great band and great album.  Touring a new album is where the cash is these days


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## Guest120 (10 Oct 2007)

Caveat said:


> Many bands of course couldn't afford to follow their example.


The majority of bands would get less than 1 euro per album sale via a record label.


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## Caveat (10 Oct 2007)

Bluetonic said:


> The majority of bands would get less than 1 euro per album sale via a record label.


 
Not if they were on an independent label.

Less than €1? Are you sure about this - what source gave you this info?
I seem to remember a figure of between 12 and 16% of the RRP of the CD.


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## Guest120 (10 Oct 2007)

Caveat said:


> what source gave you this info?


Many years of reading and acquiring knowledge from music industry articles.


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## Caveat (10 Oct 2007)

Bluetonic said:


> Many years of reading and acquiring knowledge from music industry articles.


 
Well I or anyone else could have given the same non-committal, unhelpful answer.  

I think you'll find your figure is way off and you would be advised to acquire some further knowledge. Even doing a quick _google _will contradict your claim. 

I have official BMI figures on this at home that are only a couple of years old - I'll check them tonight.


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## Guest120 (10 Oct 2007)

Caveat said:


> Well I or anyone else could have given the same non-committal, unhelpful answer.
> 
> I think you'll find your figure is way off and you would be advised to acquire some further knowledge. Even doing a quick _google _will contradict your claim.
> 
> I have official BMI figures on this at home that are only a couple of years old - I'll check them tonight.



Yawn.

I am going by articles I have read, I'm quite happy to stick to that. 

Enjoy your 'couple of years old' figures which represent the Brisitsh music industry.

Topic close for me.


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## Squonk (10 Oct 2007)

A better business model might be to charge a minimum of, say, €2 to cover the costs to the band including a fixed margin, but with the option for the fan/downloader to pay more than that if desired.


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## amgd28 (10 Oct 2007)

Even if one pound per album is less than they currently get for a retailed album in the shops (I'm not in a position to quote what proportion they keep), the likelihood is that at that price, demand will be stimulated. In addition, there will be some that pay in excess of the current amount they make from retail distribution so I think its a sensible business move


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## Jock04 (10 Oct 2007)

It's got people talking about them again, without expensive advertising.

A novel move, fair play to them.


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## askalot (10 Oct 2007)

It's not an entirely original idea. Stephen King published a serial story in e-book form in 2000. He asked people who downloaded each installment to pay one dollar and set a target of at least 75% of downloaders paying.

More info here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Plant

The main point is:

''It received over the desired 75 percent for its first installment, but this fell to 70 percent after installment two. With the third installment, the numbers surged back up to 75 percent.
King and his publisher held fast to their ideal rate of return at 75 percent, and they decided to double the cost of the fourth part of the novel to two dollars. King tried to offset this price increase by also doubling the number of pages to 54 pages for the fourth installment. He also promised to cap the total cost of the entire book at a total of 13 dollars. Paying readers dropped to 46 percent of downloads. The number of downloads decreased overall as well.
The last installment was published on December 18, 2000. The book was never completed."

I've read in an interview with him that he regards his experiment into peoples honesty as a failure!

I've a feeling this will end the same way.


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## Guest124 (10 Oct 2007)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/7037194.stm

-  Get it for FREE according to this article!


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## Bob_tg (11 Oct 2007)

askalot said:


> I've read in an interview with him that he regards his experiment into peoples honesty as a failure!
> 
> I've a feeling this will end the same way.


 
I was in a wine bar last year in Berlin where you could sit for the evening drinking wine.  At the end of the evening, you decided how much to contribute.  One of my friends put in €10, someone else put in €20 - both drank the same amount!!

Apparently, the place has been in business for a few years, so the 'voluntary payment' model appears to work for them.  Maybe the model works only when people are drunk.  Maybe it works only in certain cultures.  Maybe it'll work for Radiohead....


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## ubiquitous (11 Oct 2007)

I'm not convinced that the e-book format is viable. I certainly would have no interest in printing off the several hundred pages of an average book and having to read through wodges of loose sheets rather than the book itself.

I think Stephen King's conclusion was wrong. It was bad form for him to accept payments off his readers for a book he never bothered to finish. Trust is a two-way street.


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## emaol (11 Oct 2007)

Hi

Just downloaded the album.

The site asks for email/name/address as well as CC details.
Queues you for download for approx 5 minutes, then delivers.

Mentions a CC handling fee, but says it won't tell you until after you put in your own payment amount. Turns out it was 45 pence STG.

Can be burned to a disc, so no apparent attempt to prevent piracy.

Total album is 39 minutes long, 10 tracks, and whilst there are pro-tools in evidence, Thom Yorke's vocals are legible!

Now, must pay attention and see if the content is any good after all the talk of how it's being distributed.

Wait, what's that you say Thom? Must kill all leaders? MUST KILL ALL LEADERS...............pssft


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## gianni (11 Oct 2007)

No CC fee if you pay €0


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## Ceist Beag (11 Oct 2007)

gianni said:


> No CC fee if you pay €0



I suppose no matter how cheap something is you will always get tightarses who want it for free!!


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## emaol (11 Oct 2007)

amgd28 said:


> Even if one pound per album is less than they currently get for a retailed album in the shops (I'm not in a position to quote what proportion they keep), the likelihood is that at that price, demand will be stimulated. In addition, there will be some that pay in excess of the current amount they make from retail distribution so I think its a sensible business move





This might go someway to expalining the breakdown of where the money goes from a CD


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## elefantfresh (11 Oct 2007)

> I suppose no matter how cheap something is you will always get tightarses who want it for free!!



I remember about 4 years ago a fav band of mine released their final album which i managed to "aquire" 2 weeks before release. It was their worst album by far but on the day of release i still went in and bought it as i thought that they had given me such good music over the previous 10 years that it was only right. I didnt want to "steal" from them but i was so eager to get the new album.


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## Caveat (11 Oct 2007)

emaol said:


> This might go someway to expalining the breakdown of where the money goes from a CD


 
Based on this then, you are looking at around €1.50 per CD - also, the calculation is based on lower UK CD retail prices and on the author's admittedly "lowish" rate of 14%.

That considered, total to artist, in practice, could quite easily be €2.00 per unit.

Not a huge amount, but a good deal better than "less than €1"

(Would also agree with Elefantfresh's approach BTW)


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## gianni (12 Oct 2007)

Ceist Beag said:


> I suppose no matter how cheap something is you will always get tightarses who want it for free!!




I didn't download it, just making the point that you wouldn't have to pay a CC fee if you didn't use your CC.

Don't agree with your flippancy about those people who chose to get it for free as being "tightarses". 

Trying to evade tax, now that would be more akin to tightarse behaviour...IMHO


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## Harlequin (12 Oct 2007)

Radiohead also offered a special discbox version of the album - you pay £40stg and you get to download the album now, and then some time between now and December, you get the album on CD and on vinyl plus a bunch of artwork and lyrics and stuff and an enhanced CD including extra tracks and pictures. All in a special book.

So even though we could have got it for free, I know several people who are perfectly happy to shell out for the limited edition stuff. Radiohead fans are obsessive collectors!!  

Wikipedia quotes a Gigwise article article saying that 1.2 million copies were sold with an average price of £4 each. If that's true, not bad going at all.


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## IrishGunner (13 Oct 2007)

Have not downloaded it but an interesting article [broken link removed]
about the quality of the download

The conspiracists are out there


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