Every February, the leadership team gets together to look back at the previous year and present new plans for the one ahead. Our latest review/preview session was graced by radio DJs Mattie Valk of Qmusic Netherlands and Anke Buckinx of JOE Belgium. It was a fantastic evening. Mattie and Anke’s medium was in the spotlight, and rightly so, because our radio stations had a fantastic 2024, achieving record-breaking market shares. Financially, it was a banner year.

I often call radio the hidden gem of the media landscape. It’s still an incredibly popular medium, largely unaffected by the rise of streaming services and podcasts. Thanks to the DJs’ personalities, listener interaction, engaging morning and evening shows, original promotional stunts and strong branding, people form an emotional bond with radio.

I’m very proud of our radio creatives. They’re passionate professionals who built our radio brands from the ground up and through their dedication turned them into the most popular stations in Belgium and the Netherlands. 

We’ve come a long way since we first entered the Flemish radio market in 2001, after years of political wrangling over the public broadcaster’s radio monopoly. We didn’t exactly hit the ground running, leading the CEO of the public broadcaster to sardonically remark that there appeared to be no demand for commercial radio. That gave us even more drive to make Qmusic a success, improving little by little every day. After three long years, the formula finally caught on. As we say so beautifully in Flanders: “The mayonnaise started to thicken.” That was when Qmusic really began to take off. 

When we bought the Dutch station Radio Noordzee in 2005 and renamed it Qmusic, it was the same story all over again. We knew we had a very strong concept, but it still took several years for the channel to get off the ground and build its audience. Radio is like a friend, and friendships aren’t built in a day. That was the biggest lesson for us: if you believe in your formula, stay the course – be patient and don’t let anything or anyone distract you. Radio turned out to be a fantastic adventure for our group, and its future looks bright.

The perseverance and creativity of our radio colleagues can inspire the way we approach other media, which have to completely reinvent themselves to meet the demands of the digital age. Newspapers were the first medium to feel the massive impact of this transformation. The news is at our fingertips 24/7, reading habits have changed radically and numerous digital competitors have emerged. As a result of the dominance of global tech companies, the traditional business model has been completely overturned.

So now we’re faced with a very complex challenge: we have to rethink our journalism and the business model of our newspapers at the same time. Meeting this challenge will require profound passion for the craft of journalism, as well as a long-term vision. But digitalisation also requires significant resources, which we’ve been able to free up through economies of scale. In both Belgium and the Netherlands, this has proved essential to the successful transformation of our newspapers into modern news media.

It gives me great satisfaction that our titles will continue to play their vital role in society, and that they’ve retained their independence. Independent journalism may be more important than ever, as social media puts pressure on our democracies. That’s why it’s central to our company’s mission.

Now it’s television’s turn. The arrival of streaming platforms like Netflix, Disney and Amazon has shaken the television industry to its core, and it’s clear that TV is heading for a whole new future. Fortunately, we embraced innovation early on, investing heavily in our Belgian streaming services VTM GO, Streamz and RTL Play. Technology and content development require substantial financial commitments, but we’re convinced that there’s room for strong local brands alongside the global players. Viewers love well-crafted local television, and we’re great at making it.

Again, we need scale to compete with the global giants in terms of content and technology. That’s why we want to expand our TV activities by acquiring RTL Netherlands, an extremely successful and innovative television company that owns the excellent streaming platform Videoland. We hope to get the green light from the Dutch competition authority this spring, so we can continue to shape the future of television together.

Our primary focus will be on television and streaming for big screens, as these remain the most important forms of home entertainment. They also provide the most effective environment for video advertising. Meanwhile, we’ve laid the groundwork for a major expansion of our online video offering. Reinventing television is yet another great challenge, but also an amazing adventure.

I began this foreword by praising our radio creatives, and now I’d like to end it by acknowledging the remarkable successes of some of our other colleagues. Year after year, I’m deeply impressed by the results of our magazine division. It’s truly incredible to see how well our titles are holding up in a sector under pressure. Our online services also performed extremely well – over the past 10 years, we’ve built a very strong business with leading brands like Independer, Autotrack and Mijn Energie. They’ve become part of our core business, and there’s still plenty of potential for future growth.

Finally, I’d like to thank all our employees for a wonderful year. Here’s to our continued success in 2025.