PLOG: Trip to Medialaan #WeArePR

Today I’m doing it slightly different than normal. No classic blog post, but a PLOG. #WeArePR went on a day trip and visited Medialaan. You can find a bunch of pictures of this fun and instructive day below. Enjoy!

[plog] • noun = blogging, but using only pictures.

Everything is all about Red Nose Day and we would have known that. When arrived at Medialaan 1, hugh pictures of ambassadors Koen Wouters and co immediately caught the attention. What a welcome!

When entering, we saw large white panels where the DJ's of Qmusic showed off. It's under construction. The radio station is moved from the second floor to the ground floor to get in closer contact with the audience passing by Medialaan. And that takes al lot of work.

Time for us to work now! Sara Vercauteren, who has just been voted best Dutch spokesperson of the year, gave us an interesting expert class about Medialaan and their future plans.

After the expert class, it was time for some more action. We got a guided tour through the radio- and news studios. Bucketlist thing: Check.

First stop: the second floor where the radio stations are located. There are also many desks where, of course, hard work is being done. During our tour we saw 'celebrities' like Sam de Bruyn, Heidi Van Thielen and Jolien Roets setting up their radio shows.

From 9 am to 12 o'clock, you can see (euh, hear) Matthias Vandenbulcke and Sarah Mylle at work. And we were allowed to experience this live. They told us how 'making radio' works exactly. And that's not just playing records. But with mixing songs and create appropriate playlists, there's a lot of preparation going on.

From radio to television. The one and only Stef Wouters, news anchor at VTM Nieuws, led us around the news studio and showed us where the news is searched, made and processed. Besides Stef, we also saw Freek Braeckman, Robin Ramaekers and Faroek Özgünes. They were all present.

Besides the oldskool news studio, there's also a new, 'independent' studio, which is built to bring breaking news fast. There is only one person, the news anchor, needed to go live. Thanks to the smart technologies and software that you can also find in self-driving cars, the news can go on air in no time.

Last stop: On the other side of the street you can find, among other departments, the sales department of Medialaan. We were allowed to join for a delicious lunch and continued with working on our pitch, with good comments as a result. Hard work pays off.

Thanks to Medialaan for the interesting day!

EXTRA: Be sure to check out this little vlog from Lotte and me @ Medialaan.

All pictures: © Leen Van de Sande