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As from February 24th, Twizz has risen from the ashes of Ciel Radio and started broadcasting on the so-called U (Urban)-2 network – the 23 frequencies offer Twizz a solid 75% coverage of the French speaking South of Belgium. The arrival of new investors paved the way for a start from scratch.

When, in October 2008, the Belgian French government implemented a new frequency plan, awarding FM radio broadcast frequencies to national, regional, urban and local radio stations, Ciel Radio received a license for 23 frequencies. In view of this frequency allocation round, Ciel Radio, who started out in 1988, overhauled their studios and technical installation (see Radio World issue Nov 2007), and prepared a “music/news/sports” format. In order to shape Ciel’s programme structure and modus operandi, the launch of the station was postponed for several times, until the Conseil Supérieur de L’Audiovisuel threatened to withdraw the licence.

The whole project came in a stroomversnelling when, in December last year,  press group IPM (la Libre Belgique, La Dernière Heure, Paris Match), majority shareholder in Ciel Radio’s exploitation structure, “Ciel FM SA”, decided to concentrate more with the radio project. Jean-Lou Bertin, a radio veteran who left his management seat with Radio Contact to launch Mint (the network, part of  RTL’s “Radio H” that failed to obtain a licence), was attracted to put the station back on track and in the air. The station’s holding company’s shares were transferred from Ciel FM S.A. to Twizz radio S.A.

“The idea was to position the new radio between the a generalist and musical format,” said Bertin, programme director with Twizz, “We also wanted to make “tabula rasa” – leaving the historical pro’s and con’s of Ciel Radio as a brand name behind, and opted for Twizz.”
In January, the Tecteo group entered Twizz radio S.A – the group exploits VOO (offering digital TV, internet) and pay TV-station BeTV, both on the Wallonian cable network. Today, shares are split between IPM (60%) and Tecteo (40%).
“This financial injection helped Twizz to launch within two months, a new impulse allowing us to invest in staff and equipment, ” explained Bertin, “The whole radio operation, studios, offices and multimedia department are now located with IPM in Brussels.”

Bertin, who took a one year sabbatical after he left Mint (and the RTL group, after over 20 years of radio management), developed a keen vision for the new player on the Belgian French radio market. “Music is available everywhere, it’s the content that will play a bigger role in future,” he said. “Thanks to the strong press group backbone (with specialists for news, economy, politics and sports) in our shareholder structure we will be able to offer a ‘hybrid’ radio: the strong news content mixed with pop-rock music aiming at the 25-45 age bracket is an alternative for news-talk stations like (commercial) Bel RTL or (public) La Première. Our staffers are no DJ’s nor newsreaders – they must be able to go beyond the traditional announcements, who I believe, will become obsolete in the long run.”

Twizz is aiming for the active and interested young adults, (“not the intellectuals, but people looking for added values”, Bertin says) which inspired the station’s management, headed by (former Ciel Radio chief) Michèle Lempereur, to pay particular attention to the broadcaster’s availability with the audience; via the 23 terrestrial frequencies, the world wide web and podcasting. “First of all, Twizz’s homepage is plain but to-the-point: instead of having to click and scroll our visitors get direct access to the radio audio, like a traditional radio set,” comments Bertin. “The biggest novelty, and a national première for radio, is our podcasting application that includes a replay function, allowing listeners to go back 24 hours in our broadcasts to re-listen news, audio fragments or songs. Once the snippet has been broadcasted, podcast users can ‘rewind’ the programme and listen, even use the ‘pause’ button. On short notice, we want to expand this replay function to a full week.”

Bertin adds that Twizz’s technical team paid extreme attention as to the quality of the audio streams offered on the webpage, podcast or I-phone, for which the station launched its own application, and marks another first in Wallony.

Twizz had the big advantage of kicking off in recently refurbished broadcast studios – the main studio is based on a DHD RM4200D console with an RDS Selector play out system, the configuration further includes a spacious live studio, a production room and two individual vocal booths, all located right next to IPM’s news room – hot news on hand so to speak.

It was VDL BENELUX SA.,  a subsidiary of VDL France, who were assigned to take on the distribution of  Twizz’s signal, the distribution of the radio content to the 23 transmitter sites , the necessary technical upgrades and reorganisation of the existing technical infrastructure. The job was assigned in October – 90% of the network went on air for trials by the end of the year.

“We replaced the former (MDO-Uk STL IP) protocol by a in-house developed system, together with Digigram codec’s and the IP-VPN Network from Wallonian provider WIN,” explained Patrick Waty, engineer with VDL Benelux. “We had excellent results with the Fun radio network, for which we implemented a similar system last year. Also, IP is financially more interesting that satellite transmission, with lots of options in the field of modular use. The fact that the system allows us to centralise the whole network’s diagnostics is a major bonus.”

VDL also installed Sound4 processors, replacing the Omnia equipment in the Twizz configuration, serving individual outputs to the 23 transmitters (allowing adjustable publicity content for each region or group of stations), the output to Belgacom TV, VOO and Twizz’s internet pages.
The station’s complete network is also monitored round-the-clock by VDL, who remain owners of the DB Broadcast PF serie transmitter park.. “During day-time, our staff is monitoring every transmitter site and the broadcast process,” continues Pascal Busard, CEO of VDL Bénélux. “At night, VDL France, based in Lyon, adds the Twizz network to their already existing package of more 100 stations subscribing to 24/7 monitoring.”

Advertising for Twizz is handled by RJP for regional and local publicity, and by Régie Média Belge (RMB) for national ad sales. The station estimates that, in three years time, a audience market share of 4 to 5% is realistic.