Follow Up to Radiohead's Music Model

We reported on Radiohead's move to put their latest album online for "pay what you want" prices. Early results are streaming in from comScore, which show that about 6 in 10 downloaders, rode the free gravy train, and didn't pay a thing for the album since it was made available online on Oct. 10. Looking at this worldwide, 1.2 million people visited the album's Web site last month, which is a pretty good amount of traffic but nothing what I would have thought for the amount of publicity this move got and the fan base that Radiohead had. A "significant percentage" downloaded the record on the site. This is all according to comScore estimates.

Looking closer, 38% of all downloaders worldwide paid something for the album, bless their generous hearts ;-), while 62% downloaded it for free. Rock on Freeloaders. Paying downloaders forked over an average of $6, with U.S. consumers paying almost twice as much ($8.05) as those from other countries ($4.64).

Between the "freeloaders" and paying downloaders, overall revenue came to an average $2.26 per album. If you figure that the band most likely would have gotten between $3 and $5 per album through their label it doesn't look that good monetarily but what were the intangibles.

Success or Failure aside, we have to look at the intangible factors that could translate down the road into increases in ticket sales, a new audience who downloads the music for free to test against their taste preferences, more publicity due to this move, increased goodwill from consumers and other revenue brought in down the line. We will just have to wait and see but this is really a great case study for how to sell your own media online when you have an audience.