Pirate! leads digital delivery direction!

Pirate! leads digital delivery direction!

All of us in the music industry have been affected by massive amounts of change, and we continually need to find new ways to adapt and operate. That brings us to this new change of moving to an all digital format. When the rest of the industry follows suit, we will save millions of dollars as well as prevent a ton of waste.

Starting in 2011, Pirate! Promotion is moving to an all digital operation. This means that all records will be delivered via our digital downloads page, which many stations have already been enjoying for years. In addition to this, all current and future Backbone Radio Network (more info) stations will also be able to access any and all Pirate! releases right within their automation systems, as all of our new music will be available in the cloud.

How can millions be saved? When breaking down the numbers, our average client spends over $1500 per release on designing, manufacturing, and mailing promotional CDs to radio on a regular basis, on top of any promotion and marketing costs for each release. These numbers may not appear staggering. However, when you figure that the average record sells less than the promotional allotment, it can be the difference between a successful release or a release which lost money. Our clients alone will save nearly half a million dollars per year by reducing promotional copies, mailers, postage, etc. just to send out hard copies. This is wasteful both in actual cost and of course physical waste that’s being created.

Will you ever see another CD from us? Yes! From time to time we will have special CDs that get sent out, especially as part of thank you packages for stations that do support a release or express interest in wanting a hard copy. So hard copies won’t go away 100%, but when we can cut out 95% of them we can save the industry hundreds of thousands of dollars, and as the industry collectively follows suit we will save millions upon millions on a yearly basis.

Is digital only servicing harder for some stations? Yes, we know that a digital only format is not going to be perfect for everyone. However, we know that it’s getting easier and easier for many stations, and we’re willing to work with you to try and make it easier to use digital releases. For those who want to burn CDs, we will be including tray cards and artwork along with the download. For those stations that need a hard copy of a release that you know will do well at the station, you can always request them and, when available, we’ll gladly send anything you request. We have already seen a spike in the amount of downloads for all of our digital only releases and we feel that the future truly is digital.

We know that there will be some growing pains, but we’re tired of seeing labels and artists we love lose money, go out of business, or worse quit what they are doing because they can’t get a leg up due to the costs just to launch a release. Our industry has been talking about going digital for years and we feel that it is finally time to make that leap.

As stations support this initiative and other promoters and labels follow suit we’ll easily save the industry millions and turn our focus onto the future of the industry instead of fighting for the past.

If you have any questions please contact us at steve at piratepirate dot com