The future of news services was the key topic at Enex’s annual General Assembly meeting in Antwerp Thursday 22 and Friday 23 October 2026. In the keynote opening address, DPG owner and Executive Chairman, Christian Van Thillo was enthusiastic about building profitable news services across the sectors DPG is active in including magazine publishing, linear television, streaming and online publishing. DPG now owns RTL Netherlands and partly owns RTL TVI, Belgium.
A panel of news directors focussed on how to build news services on streaming platforms and whether traditional media can capitalize on the techniques of news creators to ensure established brands keep close to their audiences and maintain trust. A later panel of CTOs discussed what progress is being made to integrate AI into newsroom workflows and ‘Cassandra’ an AI assisted moderator gave her assessment about which company was doing the best so far.
2022 Nobel Peace Prize winner Oleksandra Matviichuk spoke about the continuing humanitarian toll on the Ukrainian people from the Russian assault.
At Enex conferences it is traditional that a senior politician from the host country addresses the attendees. Antwerp was no exception and Matthias Diependaele, Minister – President of the Government of Flanders spoke about the challenges of media to maintain the position of trust with their audiences.
Sky’s Washington Correspondent, Mark Stone, drew a vivid portrait of the many demands on a correspondent in 2026 who is expected to file for digital, television, vodcast and paid-for subscriber services while on assignment.
Róbert Kotroczó, RTL Hungary’s News Director, presented on how RTL covered the downfall of the Viktor Orban government and Peter Magyar’s early days in power.
Enex’s own company update was presented by Mark Evans where he outlined the new partners to join the news partnership and Enex’s editorial highlights.
David Rhodes, Executive Chairman of Sky News, appealed to media organisations to join the SPUR coalition which aims to coordinate industry response to the threat of LLM disruption.
As always a highlight of the conference is the announcement of new partners. In Antwerp two presented their services, firstly Najib Gouiaa, Co-Founder and CEO of GA, a new international channel yet to be launched focussing on audiences in Africa.
Jamie Angus, VP International News, Antenna Group, Italy then spoke on the new news streaming service launched on DAZN.
Publicly funded media also attended with Deutsche Welle Innovation Manager, Mirko Lorenz explaining the concept of ‘liquid content’ and how Big Tech will transform how audiences access media.
Lastly, the conference divided into three separate working groups to discuss
- How to build news services on streaming platforms
- Shared experience of introducing AI assisted workflows into newsrooms
- Building subscription models for broadcasters.
Contact Enex if you are interested in the detailed notes from these sessions at enex@enex.lu
The Enex event received it’s highest post-Covid attendance. Adrian Wells, ENEX Managing Director, said: “This is always the high point of the year to gather and unify our alliance of newsrooms across the world. All our challenges are shared and the ability to exchange knowledge and best practice is one of the key reasons our partnership group is growing.”
