Radiohead: What the?
October 1st, 2007
Radiohead has announced that their new record “In Rainbows” will be sold as a digital download with flexible pricing – fans can choose how much they want to pay for it. They’re also selling a physical item, a kind of superbox with a bonus CD (and some LP “records”!) for 80 bucks. There’s no label, there’s no distribution deal. I think this is a great move for them, and at the very least it’s an experiment the rest of us can learn from – I hope they’ll be forthcoming about the numbers they get. If I had to guess I’d say this plan will get the music to more ears, possibly generate less gross revenue on digital sales, but vastly improve their bottom line – their profit margin is going to be a lot higher than it would be with a label/distributor, plus this is likely to drive plenty more people to live shows and merchandise.
This is what you’ll get when you mess with us…
