BOSTON — RTL Belgium broadcasts news and entertainment to French-speaking Belgium. Formerly part of the RTL Group, it was sold to the Belgian media companies DPG Media and Groupe Rossel in 2021. Steve Van den Audenaerde, RTL Belgium’s head of radio operations, draws on 30 years of experience in audio sales to co-steer the group’s news/entertainment station bel RTL and flagship Radio Contact brand.
RedTech: Tell us about yourself, your background and your journey in audio broadcasting.
Steve Van den Audenaerde: I have a background as a daytime radio host with a local Antwerp station and, later, the Belgian pioneer commercial network Radio Contact, where I stayed for 14 years. In the early 1990s, I started as one of the first native Dutch speakers working for the French-speaking sales house that sold airtime for RTL Belgium and the Flemish stations I was with. I launched the bundling of competing private radio stations in one commercial offering, which simplified the commercial offering, combining national and regional commercial radio. I became the sales house’s communication director and then the overall director for audio.
In 2018, I started working for DPG Media, the biggest media outlet in the Low Countries and was part of the team that managed leading stations Qmusic and Joe. With a Dutch colleague I started the podcast business for the broader DPG Media brand in Belgium and the Netherlands.
I am now ending my first year as head of radio operations back where I started — RTL Belgium.
RedTech: RTL is a multimedia group with a significant TV offering; how does that benefit your audio broadcasting offering, if at all?
Van den Audenaerde: Some TV thinking has altered how we make radio. This is especially true for our news-driven station bel RTL. Some of our personalities are famous for their radio programming, but they also appear on TV shows or news broadcasts, which is undoubtedly beneficial for both.
Radio Contact and bel RTL broadcast morning programming on two of the leading TV channels, pioneering this long before others in Belgium. The link with TV also helps us with the two 24/7 Radiovision channels, which broadcast radio with accompanying video clips.
We share the RTL Info news department with TV, which includes journalists who work for both the media and the digital platform RTL Info. Of course, staff in supporting departments are also shared.
RedTech: RTL is a commercial enterprise operating in a mature market; what challenges do you face that local public or commercial broadcasters in emerging markets don’t?
Van den Audenaerde: We are happy to be in a big, profitable radio market, but keeping radio “in the sweet spot” here is challenging. Changes in measuring could affect radio. Differences in recall methods and passive measuring might be a plus in emerging markets but a more significant challenge in the highly successful Belgian radio ad market radio. Teaching how radio works and the medium’s value for advertising campaigns will remain a permanent challenge.
The smaller French-speaking Belgian market imposes quotas on French music to help maintain local culture. Streaming alternatives don’t have those restrictions, which is partially true for Belgian public broadcasting.
The ongoing switch to DAB+ is also a challenge. French Belgian radio aims to end FM in the next decade, but DAB+ has not yet achieved good technical coverage.
Be a reference in something. Be very good at it. Be local. Bring quality. And hit the same nail time and time again.
RedTech: How is radio broadcast strategy evolving as the technology landscape changes?
Van den Audenaerde: The strategy is to be where the audience is, and that’s fragmenting. The youth listen less to the radio, yet our broadcast strategy must adapt to reach them before they are permanently lost.
Within fragmenting distribution channels, we try to have the strongest possible tie with the P1 listener without losing touchpoints with the occasional listener or the audience that still needs to discover our stations. Therefore, owning a direct relationship is essential. Technology makes that easy, but all non-owned channels remain a challenge.
Lastly, a prime objective is repackaging our content in a commercially viable way to address new demand for technological innovations like the evolving car dashboard or other platforms.
RedTech: What role is AI playing in your group’s radio operations now, and how do you see its role in the near future?
Van den Audenaerde: It is early days, so we scan technology, follow up and evaluate. RTL uses technology to go faster in editing content and making copy better. AI nourishes the information we use to prepare content. Our sales house has integrated AI to prepare and evaluate operations. AI might automate some of our programming in the future. However, our firm belief is that local talent in storytelling and the warmth of human presence make radio stand out. It will be a delicate exercise to automate and enhance content without losing the confidence of an audience that embraces radio for its intimacy and connecting capabilities.
RedTech: What technology — affiliated or not with audio broadcasting — are you monitoring as a possible sector disrupter, and why?
Van den Audenaerde: Firstly, in-car listening. New audio competition, big tech and car manufacturers want part of the in-car experience and the data that comes with it. We must team up with some of them to see how we can benefit from what the consumer demands. We also know that some audiences could turn to more on-demand content.
Secondly, connected devices might increasingly become the household’s next “radio transmitter.” It’s essential to monitor how big tech and hardware manufacturers reserve a place for traditional radio and make it easily accessible.
RedTech: Given the plethora of audio content available worldwide, how should linear broadcasters consider their on-demand strategy?
Van den Audenaerde: Be a reference in something. Be very good at it. Be local. Bring quality. And hit the same nail time and time again.
RedTech: How are you allocating your capital and human resources between the existing FM businesses and other opportunities? Please describe these other opportunities and why you choose to focus on them.
Van den Audenaerde: Most turnover comes from radio, and we don’t want to try to be something we cannot be. So, we focus on the content and the number of offerings we can generate for that. Be it audio or video. We’re figuring out how radio can be a part of the visual world of local and streamed subscription and advertising-based video-on-demand content. That blends different teams. Radio makes the content, but digital monitors the distribution channels’ effectiveness and commercial attractiveness. Social — within marketing — must maintain the high number of people consuming our snackable social content. But our on-air talent must push what they think is remarkable content.
Next year, we will start “Radio Contact Max” — a new digital station on DAB+, streaming and TV. We also hope to spread the love for the almost 50-year-old Radio Contact brand name to a broader audience via the significant rise in digital audio consumption.
RedTech: Regarding skills, who should radio businesses hire today and tomorrow vs. the skills they may have been looking for in the past?
Van den Audenaerde: People that live in that world of the audience. In the past, a 50-something could be the main host. Nowadays, at least the sidekicks must walk and talk the daily routine of those plugged into the digital alternative world. Making that bridge between the hard daily facts and important hypes and entertainment is vital. Young new talent is very much focused on socials and video. Radio is no longer a central part of the world of teens and 20-somethings. Those talents are hard to get or develop.
An influx of digitally savvy marketers and content creators is necessary for supporting roles. The radio business needs entrepreneurial people who can master strategy in an unpredictable environment dominated by multiple innovations and choices.
One of the shareholder radio stations just recruited an entertainer who only works on TikTok content.
On-air talent must live and understand the habits of their audiences to be credible translators of what unites and interests the local audience. That will never change.
RedTech: Technological changes have significantly altered the media landscape over the past 20 years. As a leader in media, is there a technology that would improve your business that you’d like software and hardware companies reading this to be thinking about inventing?
Van den Audenaerde: Since I believe in entrepreneurship and the forward and disruptive nature of digital, those ideas will come, but it’s hard to imagine what has not yet been examined or created. However, I would love to distill an interesting on-demand radio show from half a day of broadcasting in the blink of an eye curated by an AI anchor voice. But I’m sure someone is working on that.
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