Customer story Talpa Network

Radio remains an important medium with a daily reach of 58% of all Dutch people. With 3 FM stations (Radio 538, Radio 10 and Sky Radio) and associated dab+ and online channels, Talpa Network is one of the largest players in the radio market. Each station is a brand in itself, with its own target group, promotions, charts and events.

Challenge

Radio 10 and Radio 538 both have their own premium telephone number that are used for, among other things, radio contests. At Radio 10, these lines are used for various contests and contact with the listener. At Radio 538, you can win tickets for 538 King’s Day, the Formula 1 Heineken Dutch Grand Prix in Zandvoort and in 2024 also for the European Football Championship in Germany.

“At such times, many people call at the same time. It is important that every caller has a chance to enter and the audio quality remains good,” says Patrick Borst, Manager Broadcast Radio. “In recent years we noticed that the capacity of our former service provider was no longer sufficient. Reason enough to look for another supplier.”

Solution

Radio 538 was already a customer of Sound of Data in the past and therefore a familiar party for Patrick. He has been working at Talpa Network for 14 years and is now responsible for the radio technology, including the telephone lines. With his team he provides both 1st and 2nd line technical support to the radio studios and they are also responsible for the construction and maintenance of all production and radio studios. Furthermore, the team is often on the road at home and abroad to arrange all location broadcasts.

Patrick: “From the first contact I noticed that Sound of Data could meet the desired demand and immediately understood what we wanted. The decision to switch was therefore quickly made.”

““Sound of Data has a friendly, knowledgeable and passionate team and the short lines of communication make it easy to get things done quickly. They work with the same feeling and passion for their profession as we do for ours, which is why it feels like an extension of our own team.””

Patrick Borst

Manager Broadcast Radio

Result

The telephone numbers moved to the Sound of Data platform on 1 July 2024. Patrick: “The change was made without interruptions, which was very pleasant for our radio stations. The Sound of Data platform is stable and widely scalable. In addition, we now have better bandwidth; HD Voice+ and we can process more concurrent calls at the same time.”

This was tested immediately because tickets for the European Football Championship were given away that month. “Due to capacity problems in the past, we were not always able to offer our listeners the service we would like to provide. Since our numbers are active on the Sound of Data platform, this is no longer an issue. We can now easily accept up to 450 callers at the same time and the audio quality also remains good. We no longer have to worry about that.”

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