Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organisations, has announced that Brussels-based BX1 has expanded its multimedia channel and content operations with the flagship Dalet Galaxy five platform.
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 organisation recently completed its transformation into a multimedia powerhouse, offering its highly engaged audiences programmes across television, radio, digital and social media. The agile production and distribution infrastructure, which is underpinned by Dalet Galaxy five, enables BX1 to prepare and deliver local news, politics, business, culture, fashion, music and sports content from a single media technology platform.
BX1 and Dalet started their collaboration in 2015. This led to the installation in the same year of Dalet News Pack – 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 Dalet Xtend for Adobe Premiere Pro editing, offering all of the production and distribution capabilities that the Dalet’s Unified News Operations solution has to offer.
Cédric van Uytvanck, technical director since 2014, recalled: “The original objective was to professionalise 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.”
At first, BX1 was solely a TV station, operated by only five employees. The content struck a nerve with the local community and the station gained a loyal following, growing quickly. As BX1 matured, the audience wanted increased and better coverage, and that meant that the station needed a step change in technology and workflow. 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 concluded: “We would never have been able to develop BX1 in the way we did if we had not been so ambitious for a small organisation. 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 Premiere Pro that enable us to have a robust editorial workflow. And Dalet is right at the centre of our operations as we expand into the future.”
In addition to using Adobe Premiere Pro for advanced editing, BX1 uses the complementary Dalet OneCut editing tool for fast programme turnarounds such as breaking news.