BX1, which began as a weekly local community show that aired on Belgium’s public service broadcaster RTBF in 1985, is the leading channel for Brussels-Capital Region’s French speaking community. The organization recently completed its transformation into a “multimedia powerhouse”. The production and distribution infrastructure, which is underpinned by Galaxy five, enables BX1 to prepare and deliver content from a single media technology platform.

BX1 and Dalet started their collaboration in 2015. This led to the installation of Dalet News Pack the same year, a lighter-weight, packaged Dalet Galaxy five solution, allowing journalists to share media and collaborate on news stories.

In 2020, the system was upgraded with the full deployment of Dalet Galaxy five with Adobe Premiere editing.

Cédric van Uytvanck, technical director since 2014, recalls: “The original objective was to professionalize BX1, and that would not have been possible without the right tools. It needed to quit the historical homemade method used by the channel. It had grown from ten to 60 employees without changing methods or the technical tools, so it was not up to date. Today, about 40 employees are working simultaneously with the Dalet solution every day.”

The original ad-hoc production techniques, which involved rundown management on spreadsheets, video editing on workstations unconnected to the newsroom and without a management system, were no longer viable.

Live output increased to seven hours per day and the lunch hour radio broadcast - now with video - was extended from 30 mins to 1h 30 mins, doubling the audience. Visual radio production is similar to TV production itself, with a more informal feel - almost like a “behind the scenes” video, and the format has proven popular with the listeners and viewers.

Cédric concludes: “We would never have been able to develop BX1 in the way we did if we had not been so ambitious for a small organization. By choosing Dalet, we avoided the mistake of buying a system that could only handle TV. We are equally fluent now in TV, radio, visual radio and podcast, as well as digital and social media with key integrations such as Adobe that enable us to have a robust editorial workflow.”

In addition to using Adobe Premiere Pro for advanced editing, BX1 uses the Dalet OneCut editing tool for fast program turnarounds such as breaking news.

“BX1 is a great example of how Dalet’s flexibility can help smaller media organisations grow without overreaching their financial or human resources,” says Dalet’s GM for EMEA & APAC, Johann Zemmour. “All BX1’s journalists now move effortlessly between TV, studio work, radio and digital - a perfect example of Dalet Unified News Operations. Not only can they work across multiple digital distribution formats, but can spread across multiple physical sites. The full commercial and audience engagement potential for visual radio is realized with the new upgrade.”