RadioHead Results In…

And the results confirm what we have been preaching here — content wants to be free as in ‘beer’. Or at least that is how the consumer sees it.

62% of those that downloaded RadioHeads, album “In Rainbows” decided to pay $0. The balance opted to pay on average $6. 1.2m people visited the bands website. So let’s roll some numbers. Lets assume first that the $6 average was the consumer’s comfort level for an album. Lets also assume that only 50% who visited downloaded and paid. That’s $3.6m for an album with no post production costs. Now for a band that ain’t a bad take. But for a major distribution label that would be an economic disaster.

One other point. On a planet with 6 billion, 1.2m visitors is truly a microcast. All the carriers are following the TV model, not suited to a microcast environment. Its UGC all over again. So again their presentation platforms would not be suited to a RadioHead-like dominated audio market.

So to reiterate. For Verizon, AT&T, Comcast and Time-Warner to believe that content is what salvages their fortunes longterm is at best dubious.