Powell helps digitize music industry
When Steve Powell answered his phone one day last year, he had no idea that a troubleshooting call would blossom into a new venture.
Powell’s Web whiz reputation had preceded him. Robert Wingartz of Airplay Direct was on the other end because his company’s Web site had crashed and a representative of another company said that Powell, president of Delta Systems, could fix it.
“It was a trauma situation,” Powell says. “It was like, ‘Stop the bleeding! Stabilize the patient!’”
Powell says he got the site back up within 20 minutes. Now, little more than a year after that phone call, Powell is chief technical officer of AirPlayDirect.com.
Airplay Direct is a company that digitally delivers music to radio programmers. Powell created the digital promotion kit that allows independent artists and record labels to send three broadcast-quality tracks to thousands of radio programmers—for free. Traditionally, artists must pay to create CDs and mail them out.
“If you and I are in a band, how are we going to distribute 4,000 CDs, even at media mail rates?” Powell says. “That at least $4,000, and that doesn’t even get the CD played.”
Radio stations also can register with the site in order to search new music and artists. Powell says that few companies are providing this kind of digital service to artists and radio programmers, but using digital distribution is a growing trend. He estimates that there are thousands of radio stations and tens of thousands of artists registered on Airplay to date. He says the site has seen exponential growth since July 2006, with hundreds of new artists registering each day.
Another sign of success is landing “relevant artists,” such as hip hop artists, and big names, such as Willie Nelson, Powell says. Airplay Direct secured the exclusive digital distribution to radio rights for Nelson’s latest album, Farther Along.
“We’re continuing to build the brand [of Airplay Direct],” Powell says. “We’re making partnerships with labels. We’re also finding the site is very complementary to a MySpace or a personal site…Some artists place a banner on their site that says, ‘Use Airplay.’”
Powell continually plans improvements for the site and adds new features. Other employees at Delta Systems, such as Aaron Marchbanks and J.P. Harris, take care of artist relations and technical support for the site. Powell says that he enjoys his unique venture.
“We’re translating what people do for a living onto the digital realm,” Powell says.