Radiodays 2013 welcome reception at the Parochialkirche Radiodays Europe 2013 kicked off on Sunday at the Berliner Congress Center in Berlin. Rolf Brandrud, co-founder and project manager of Radiodays Europe welcomed this year’s participants in an informal gathering hosted by ARD at the Parochialkirche (a reformed church).
“This year we scored an impressive additional 50 percent in the figure of registered participants,” Brandrud said. “This raises the number from 700 people who registered for last year’s edition in Barcelona to about 1,000 attendants for the present edition. This is a great success. We are bringing together 1,000 people passionate about radio, but this attendance figure is a clear sign that, beyond passion, radio is still a business and an effective one,” he said.
On Sunday afternoon, the organizers held two separate pre-conference workshops — a boot camp about radio sales, featuring Paul Weyland, a sales strategist, trainer and author, from the United States; and a training session by the BBC College of Journalism about editorial leadership in the newsroom.
The executive panel during the Radiodays 2013 opening session The BBC journalism session was hosted by Jane Kinghorn, BBC senior trainer and creative consultant and Mia Costello, BBC client manager. Both Kinghorn and Costello offered participants practical on-the-job training.
Monday marked the official opening of Radiodays Europe 2013. Held at the Kuppersaal, the main room of the Berliner conference center, Dagmar Reim (rbb Berlin), Stefan Möller (AER) and Annika Nyberg (EBU) gave keynote speeches.
A session where four senior radio executives shared their thoughts and vision of radio’s future followed the keynote speeches. Speakers included Joachim Knuth, NDR and ARD; Jan-Willem Brüggenwirth, Radio 538; Cilla Benkö, Swedish Radio; and John Simons, Real and Smooth.
Other Monday sessions included “Programming Saves Lives.” During this meeting J. Mark Gillman, founder TMGS Creative, South Africa/U.K. focused on the need to get creative with radio programming; and “Multiplatform radio: new content, new revenue,” which discussed the innovative possibilities through the use of various platforms such as DAB+ and online.
— Davide Moro
