May 1 1984, I establish Burnie Productions (later known as Burnie Broadcast).

May 1 2024, 40 years later, with deep regret -due to personal circumstances- I have to close down my business.

It was a very nice adventure, sometimes a roller-coaster, made many friends, run very nice projects, won a few rewards, learned a lot.

Started my career 47 years ago at EMI (thanks Wouter), Phonogram, Eela audio (thanks Peter & Frans), Johnny Hoes BMI Telstar (thanks Fred, Adrian), TED (thanks Jos).

To exploit the successful commercial invention of the Mini Voice Killer Burnie Productions was founded in 1984. We did not only manufacture this niche product but also, we had a product-line of compressors, limiters, audio and video distribution amplifiers and we were one of the founders of a unique dynamic RMS level detector (thanks Menno, Gerrit), which is still used in a lot of feed-forward compressors and active loudspeaker systems around the world. We also did some custom products for other manufactures, like Timecode readers / generators & calculators, Noise Gates, Compressor-Limiters, RMS level detectors, ENG-Mixers, intercom systems under our own brand or as OEM (like Canford Audio, D&R, Cynergy, SPL).

Our engineering expertise started in 1987 when we build several audio and video mobiles for companies like Eurosound, Cinevideo and ENG-Videohouse.

As sound engineer, I was able to run very nice projects with artists like Sting (did partial the nothing like the sun tour), George Michael, Prince, Bon Jovi, Paolo Conte, Duran-Duran, de Dijk, Doe Maar and many more.

Since 1996 the consultancy activities became a bigger part of our company profile and we had a nice track-record in the broadcast and entertainment industry in the Benelux countries for education, training, starting up (commercial) international, regional or local TV stations, like SuperSport BE & NL, SBS6, Veronica, Sony SBC UK, European Parliament TV, etc.

Worked 6 years for ENG-Videohouse (thanks Ludo, Marc, Dirk), 7 years for VTM (thanks Frank, Lieven) and 4 years as (interim) CTO for RTV Utrecht (thanks Bauke, Chris, Elise, John)

Since 2006 we went international and run many project management projects hired by Thomson/Grass Valley (thanks Pascal, Didier, Jan, Cees, Jan), VPA (thanks Didier) Sony PSE UK (thanks Neil) Sony Italy (thanks Walter, Scott, Mauro), Sony UAE (thanks Rob, Karl, Shabbir, Ghallab), Salam Mediacast (Thanks Sami), Al Jazeera (Thanks Robert), Beeld & Geluid (thanks Tony, Bert, Julia, Ernst), (Teksignals Tariq ), Star TV-Fox India for TSG (thanks Chris, Scott, Gaurav), Netflix HQ Europe Amsterdam & Facebook London for Diversified (thanks Fred, Kevin, Chris, Dyral), INC (Adeeb, Aref), Bloomberg Asharq for Astuce (thanks Alex, Omran), IMI Al-Mashed (thanks Kupa, Khalid),

Did many audits for MOI Kuwait (thanks Sheikh Salman Sabah Al Salam, Meshal, Husein, Baddah, Sami) MBC / Al-Arabiya (thanks Nakhle, Ruba), Presidential palace Crown Prince Court UAE (thanks Saeed, Ayesha, Derek), Abu Dhabi Media (thanks Abdul Hadi, Ahmed, Mohammed).

I was involved in (nicest) project of the relocation of Sky Italy in 2007 & 2008 (thanks Robert, Susan, Paola, Massimo, Gabrielle, Stefano, Enzo, Monica), where I worked again with friends for live (Pannie, Andrew, Jean-Francois, Glen, Michael, Steve, Francis+, Bob, Peter, Mark)

Due to that project, I was involved at the start of Sky News Arabia in 2011 onwards (thanks Nart, Sophie, Adrian, Bevin, Julian, Suresh, Khaled, Ahmed, Wissam), and later in 2028 onwards for their expansion projects.

In 2008 during my Abu Dhabi Media Zone project for twofour54 I met Hasan Sayed Hasan, who founded Master-Media. We worked many years together in very nice projects for clients like Al Jazeera, Al Arabiya, Al-Ghad, Al-Arab, CNBC, QMU, Blinx, Yas creative hub, NFA and the most prestigious project I ever did for the World Expo 2020 in Dubai as we were awarded as Media & Broadcast Consultants to develop a technical, operation and functional strategy for this global event.

I probably forgot to mention many other projects and special people I met in the past 48 years, not on purpose.

This post is not a say-goodbye, I hope to work with many of you in the nearby future, but a big thanks you so far!