EBU Radio Members to celebrate golden year for European sport
03 October 2018Journalists, editors, producers and commentators from EBU Radio Members will be will be remembering 2018's jam-packed calendar of sport when they meet for the EBU Radio Sport Plenary in Brussels on October 10-11.
The annual meeting tackles relevant issues relating to radio sports coverage from journalism to broadcast technology.
VRT's David Naert, who heads up the EBU Radio Sport Group, says there's a reason why this year's Plenary is being held in the "heart of Europe".
"Many of the problems we face are common all over Europe. We will use the Plenary to initiate a dialogue with the EU, but we will also look at challenges in content, because sports journalism is more than live coverage."
The EBU Radio Sport Group meets twice a year, and in between these meetings, there is frequent contact between Members to discuss both strategic as well as specific issues, which makes it a very hands-on community, involving both big and small Members.
David Naert says 2018's big sporting events have provided Members with the opportunity to showcase how radio excels at bringing the excitement of all the action to audiences.
"We kicked off the year in PyeongChang with the Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games where Norway and Germany enjoyed huge success.
"The International Olympic Committee recognized the invaluable contribution radio still makes to big sporting events by producing a film about Radio at the Olympics. The film features Czech Radio, Swedish Radio, ARD Radio and RMC, showcasing various setups and angles of coverage."
A couple of months later, the biggest event for most EBU Members was the FIFA World Cup in Russia.
"Live coverage still is the trump card for radio," said David.
"Radio remains the fastest medium in terms of speed of delivery. However, radios increasingly visualize their best content and distribute it on their various social media platforms. We have brought together many of these in our FIFA World Cup Scrolly.
"It’s something we can take to sports federations to show them that radio can bring a tournament to life beyond the airwaves. And again, Europe played a lead role in this event, with the four semi-finalists all coming from Europe."
August was devoted to a completely new event initiated by the EBU, the seven-sport European Championships.
"This posed some logistical and technical challenges for our Members," said David.
"We explored these in the latest edition of our EBU Radio Sport Podcast which launched this year. It features ARD Radio and BBC Radio, representing the two host cities, Berlin and Glasgow."
The Plenary also has plenty more events to look forward to in 2018, giving Europe even more opportunities to shine.
EBU Members will provide coverage of the Gymnastics World Championships, the Hockey World Championships, and France and Croatia playing the Davis Cup final in tennis before the year is out.