A Gigwise poll said £4, comScore (NSDQ: SCOR) reckoned $2.26 (£1.41), before those stats were rubbished. Only Radiohead know the true average price paid online for their pay-what-you-like online album experiment In Rainbows. But a couple of new figures were floated this afternoon in a theater full of artist managers.
Said one, quoting “an insider”: “The figure was so huge that it gives a real indication of the scale of the success. Whilst loads of people were buying it perhaps at $0.05 or $0.10, there was also a huge number of people that were saying ‘What do I normally pay for a record at retail? I pay, say, £9; I tell you what, I’ll pay £5. If that was a record label royalty, they might have been getting £1.50 if they were very, very lucky on a super-seller deal. In many cases, they were receiving as much as £5 a unit, and possibly even more.”
Snow Patrol manager Jazz Summers, also quoting “inside stuff” said: “I know that the average, including the nothing-price, was £2.90 and, as you just said, that is vastly bigger than any superstar royalty I’ve known.” Still no official word from the band’s people, however.