Live music is a core content of radio and is extended now more and more to video platforms, in addition to the audio. This is the challenging message of a one day event, which took place in Hilversum on 4 October 2012.

Radio is still radio, but basically videos come in and accompany the featured music content. These videos are distributed online as clips or livestream. Many radio stations put up new online platforms for this purpose. The event, jointly put together by Eurovision Academy and EBU Radio Services, provided a unique opportunity to focus on how the new generations consume music and how program makers react on changing habits of their audience. The participants, welcomed also by the new EBU Head of Radio Christian Vogg, met at the kind invitation of VPRO-3Voor12 (Netherlands), the online platform of VPRO devoted to alternative music. Host Willem van Zeeland, editor-in-chief of 3voor12, referred to the vast spectrum of new platforms where the potential audience is engaged, while editors think of proposing their content.

Wilbert Mutsaers, Head of NPO/3FM and Ben Houdijk, Production Manager at NPO/3FM (Netherlands) gave concrete examples about how this strategy is implemented, especially during the coverage of the big open-air Dutch festivals, such as PinkPop. For instance, the same audio/video footage, may be played simultaneously on air and on web tv (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Cb0zZ_06XY).

Eric Henz Kjeldsen (DR/Denmark) and Tim Van Lier (VRT/Belgium) highlighted the fast changing patterns in music "consumption" in their respective countries. In Denmark for instance, as online music services (such as Spotify, Deezer, etc.) are increasingly seen as a genuine competitor to radio, it has led DR to initiate a new project (http://www.dr.dk/musik/beta), where music acts become an entry point to radio shows. As Jan Westerhof, Managing Radio Director of NPO, put it, radio can go visual and remains radio. 

A successful music format was presented by Chris Pattinson (BlackCabSessions.com). One song, one cab, big audience. To be frank, it works only with video.

Live Music online is also a nice way for festivals to get promoted and place themselves on the world map. There were two examples: the Paléo festival in Switzerland and Eurosonic Noorderslag in Holland, where some concerts can sometimes be video streamed. Both festivals are also willing to strengthen their collaboration with the EBU in this field.

Same with Tomi Saarinen, Head of Music at YLEX (Finland), who suggested the EBU should facilitate the distribution of the video streams. An overview on the question of rights was given by Peter Goethals from the EBU Legal Department on that matter. The EBU Radio Services will put forward a proposal for the - easy - distribution of live music streams.

At the end of this fruitful day, all agreed that music on radio is far from being dead. The good thing is: audio and online video are actually made for each other. But the core business of radio producers remains to produce quality programs, with new platforms offering real added value.