Audio
&video

Not air, but oxygen!

Dirk Lodewyckx

(52), managing director, ENTERTAINMENT

‘Video killed the radio star’ was the first music video aired by MTV when it started broadcasting in 1981 – a harbinger of the media revolution that video would bring about. But while video did live up to its promise, the rise of this new medium didn’t come at the expense of radio. Quite the contrary: more than four decades on, radio is still alive and kicking! In fact, 2022 proved to be a banner year for our radio, TV and streaming brands. Content, it appears, is more important than the medium it’s distributed through. 


Radio and TV programmes are rarely seen as great art. Often, they’re simply dismissed as a load of hot air. A frivolous way to pass the time, which is nevertheless interesting enough to warrant the most critical reviews. Bread and games that entire newspaper sections and websites are devoted to every day. Fleeting entertainment that sparks untold water cooler chats. All that time wasted on a daily dose of hot air! 


There are few forms of entertainment and companionship that have as much impact as radio and TV. And when a programme is moving, exciting or even just exceptionally witty, it’s anything but hot air. It’s that much-needed oxygen that every human being craves, day after day. 


In 2022, our audio and video brands generated tonnes of oxygen. And after two years of Covid, people savoured every breath.