RSSRadiohead: comScore's Numbers Are Wrong
By Ed Oswald | Published November 9, 2007, 11:26 AM
comScore's report that only 40 percent of Radiohead fans paid anything for the band's album download is now being challenged by the band itself.
In a statement provided to MTV and without giving exact figures, the band described comScore's findings as "wholly inaccurate." Since the sale was done on a private site, there would have been no way for anyone to know truly how the album sold.
According to the comScore report released earlier in the week, about 40 percent of US users paid for the album, and handed over an average of $8.05. Overseas, 36 percent paid, however only about $4.64 per download.
comScore representatives are standing by their findings, saying they were confident in the results. "There's a minimal margin of error based on the size of the sample we used and the narrow range of values," senior analyst Andrew Lipsman told MTV.
With no real data from Radiohead, it now essentially becomes a matter of he-said-she-said, as the only confirmation or denial are the dueling statements of the two sides. From statements in the press, we may never know exactly how many digital albums sell either, because the band says those figures are "not for public consumption."
The band is not the only one saying the numbers aren't correct. Globe and Mail technology writer Matthew Ingram is saying the same thing.
"As with most traffic-measuring firms, comScore also has a certain methodology that may or may be entirely accurate," he wrote on his personal weblog. "It's not clear what the survey was based on or how the firm got the numbers it is using."
Common sense would tend to lead me to believe Radiohead more.
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Why? Just suppose for a minute that Radiohead's experiment with this distribution model ended up falling flat on its face. Why would Radiohead want to publicise that? Releasing a breakdown of how many paid or not leads to comments like "x% of Radiohead's fans are freeloaders" as well as an indication as how much per track Radiohead made.
Personally I can see why they might want to keep the figures close to their chests. I regard asking for the download figures as akin to asking someone how much money they make in a year.
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POINT BLANK:
Someone PAID for the Comscore study.
I think it's rather coincidental, that EMI/Parlophone announced their Radiohead back catalog release the SAME DAY as the Comscore report.
Even if Comscore tracked 10,000 Radiohead downloaders...that's only .008 of the total sample of 1.2 million.
When did they sample these people? The first 2 days after the In Rainbows release? That makes a big difference.
Frankly, the people kvetching about Radiohead having decided not to release their numbers need to remember something:
It's none of our business. Who cares?
This was an incredibly savvy move by a band who had their three previous albums leaked online months before the legit release.
Kudos to them for doing something very brave and very adventurous. It's not the end of the labels...but this freaked 'em out, believe me.
Announcing any figures only stands to take away from the release itself. Who cares? IT'S BY FAR ONE OF THE COOLEST THINGS I'VE EVER PAID FOR AND DOWNLOADED ONLINE.
And that is ALL that matters.
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Surprised that Radiohead doesn't make the numbers public. That would at least give other bands a good idea as to whether it's a decent model.
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There's no way that comScore has any true facts as the site was private.
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Who paid for the comScore study? The RIAA, MPAA or Microsoft? Using their fuzzy math I'm sure they will say that the new Radio Head album was pirated at least ten trillion times, never mind that that number of people doesn't even exist on the face of the earth.
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Amazing how Betanews and everyone else just went with the numbers without checking for accuracy. This all smells like people are pushing their agendas. I'll bet that Radiohead made a ton more money with direct download than handing rights to the music business. What do those guys in the music business do anyhow? Provide capital and take the biggest cut, passing the hike off to the consumer. The end is near fat boys
!! Direct downloading is the way of the future. This is an especially good model for indy bands, and a great way to sell software. Why not rely on the consumer to pay what they can and what they think it's worth. Seems to me this would have the side effect of restoring the idea of conscience to consumption; perhaps a frightening notion for some.
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They didn't do this to make more money than dealing with labels, they did this to prove a point. It CAN work this way. But not now.
Too many people didn't know you could download their album off the internet, or even know how. Hell, most probably didn't even know they had a new album.
The world isn't ready for direct downloading, we still rely on CD sales. Not every band is good at marketing, they are the ones that really need labels and managers to handle this for them, while they write the music.
The future is near though. This proves it.
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The album sold more copies than their previous one and got a helluvalot more (legitimate) downloads as well (though many were not paying of course). So by all accounts, even Comscore's, it was a marketing success, and not only *can* it work, it *did* work. Right here, *right now*. More people apparently knew about this new album than the previous one, period. That's success.
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How do you know they sold more copies, when the numbers haven't been released?
Hail to the Thief was a major success, I don't think In Rainbows has outsold it thus far.
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Hellcat_M:
You on crack or what? Who said that Radiohead ASKED comScore to do anything? comScore's survey was an idependent effort. It says that Radiohead is disputing their figures, how could you assume that "they need comScore to do a survey"? ;|
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Ok this should be easy shouldn't it? The album was downloaded so they should be able to calculate how many times, and also there should be a log of how many people paid for it as well on the server. Why do they need comScore to do a survey? They should be able to look at the log, and see how many people downloaded it and who aid for it, then they just have to calculate what the average person paid.
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I think you are missing the point. Radiohead is keeping quiet about it. They didn't ask comScore to do this, I guess it's just something people were interested in. Radiohead and their people who run the site and sales know all the details, but I guess they'd rather not share, at least not right now.
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