Radiohead’s decision to allow fans to pay what they want for their new album has backfired.
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The band’s ‘honesty experience’, which gave people the choice to download In Rainbows for free or pay a sum of their choosing, saw three out of five fans opting not to pay for the LP.
A massive 62 per cent of web users who visited the bespoke site failed to enter their credit card details.
Of the 1.2 million people who downloaded the album between 10 October and 29 October, the average price was found to be USD6, according to findings by internet information provider comScore.
This figure was largely boosted by the 12 per cent of ‘honest’ fans who were willing to pay between USD8 to USD12 – the approximate cost of downloading the album from an online retail music outlet such as iTunes.
American fans were the most generous, paying an average of USD8.05, compared to USD4.64 paid outside the US.
Andrew Lipsman, a senior analyst at comScore, believes the experiment was still a success for Radiohead.
Lipsman said: “You could argue that it makes economic sense for the band to open up their music to new listeners, which may open up ticket sales and merchandise sales down the road.”
