Millions of streams, zero worries: TOPradio relies on Combell cloud

“No nonsense, just streaming.” That’s what we remembered most from our conversation with Combell customer TOPradio. Powered by Combell’s reliable cloud hosting, thousands of music lovers tune in to their favorite dance radio station online every day.

As Belgium’s number one hosting provider, we work with customers from a wide range of industries and draw inspiration from their success stories.

Digital agencies, healthcare companies, banks, real estate firms … All customers – or rather partners – doing amazing work and relying on Combell for their online business and local data infrastructure.

Media companies? We can check those off too. Including one backed by a massive dance beat. TOP, the ultimate dance radio station, runs on our hosting. It’s true: TOP hosts Jeroen & Koen are in the Combell cloud. 😉

Our online radio starts with Combell. If your cloud servers go down, there is no TOP anymore.

Stephan Vanden Berghe – Radio host at TOPradio

Passion for radio

Their slogan “We Make You Move” is absolutely right, because we made the move to the TOPradio studios in Ghent. TOPradio is the company behind TOP. Radio makers Stephan Vanden Berghe and Lowie Beirnaert told us more about the future of digital radio.

“You don’t need to give us job titles,” Stephan says to break the ice. “TOPradio is an atypical media company. We’re a small organization where we do everything together. Hierarchies aren’t necessary, passion for radio is.”

No nonsense, just dancing!

Even though the TOPradio team isn’t a fan of dusty LinkedIn titles, their shows definitely have memorable names. One of those names even reminds Lowie of Combell!

“You’re just like ‘Niet zwanzen, maar dansen’, our show where hits and classics are mixed together. It’s on every afternoon, always at the same time. You can always count on it. Very reliable – just like Combell!” says Lowie.

Stephan adds: “We know exactly what to expect from you. No empty talk or nonsense – just effective solutions.”

More than 1 million streams

Luckily, there was time for plenty of conversations too! About digital radio and the online success of both TOP and its themed stations.

“You can listen to radio in many ways, but online listening – through our Combell-hosted website or app – is incredibly important to us,” Stephan explains.

“We have a young audience that embraces new technologies. Around half of our listeners use our website or app. Compared to other radio stations, we’re growing much faster in that area.”

Lowie shows us some impressive numbers. “In January 2022, we started with 585,000 stream starts per month (the number of people launching the live radio stream). By December 2025, we had already reached more than 1,190,000 streams.

A survey also showed that 53% of our listeners have used the app at some point, and 66% have listened through DAB+, which is huge.”

Around half of our audience has used the app or website to listen to TOP.

Stephan Vanden Berghe – Radio host at TOPradio

Growing and continuing to grow

Just over four years ago, TOPradio’s digital story was still fairly limited. The team is incredibly proud of this growth, but they’re far from done. Not only are the tracks on TOP explosive, their future plans are too.

Stephan: “The story of TOPradio is growth, growth, and more growth – in every possible way. We already have several themed stations like TOP Schaamteloos and TOP Techno, but to attract new listeners, we’ll be launching even more online stations.”

“When we do a special event on one of those stations, we immediately notice a spike in listeners on our platform,” adds Lowie.

“We want to appeal to all kinds of music lovers. For example, by featuring young talent or inviting famous techno DJs to our themed station.”

Your hosting partner has to offer every possibility in terms of scalability and security. You can’t afford to hit technical limits.

Stephan Vanden Berghe – Radio host at TOPradio

Radio on demand

Today, you can watch series and movies whenever and wherever you want. TOPradio wants to bring that same game-changing experience to radio.

“We’re considering offering our shows more on demand. The idea is that listeners no longer have to wait for a program to start at a fixed time,” Stephan explains.

“We want people to decide for themselves when they listen to certain programs and music. Take our TOPretroarena 500, for example. Nobody listens to that from morning until evening in one go. Many listeners want the freedom to choose.”

To stay as close as possible to their audience, TOP also wants to better understand its listeners.

“Our data strategy is extremely important. The more we know about our listeners’ music preferences, the better we can serve them. As a result, they’ll listen longer and recommend us through word of mouth,” Stephan says.

Scaling up with Combell

As a hosting partner, Combell plays a crucial role in all of TOPradio’s growth plans. As always, this customer can count on cloud infrastructure that scales along with them.

“Because the website and app are so essential to TOP, we simply can’t do without Combell’s strong support. Our online radio starts with you. If your cloud servers go down, streaming stops completely,” Stephan tells us.

“That’s why we’re now running on renewed radio automation software. Combell is a key link in preparing our infrastructure for scaling up.”

We once experienced a DDoS attack. Combell solved the problem within fifteen minutes.

Lowie Beirnaert – Radio host at TOPradio

“Never offline”

TOP DJ Lowie personally experienced how important it is to have a hosting partner with top-level support.

“Almost all our contests start through our website. One of those contests became the target of a DDoS attack.

Our registration form was bombarded with millions of bots. When I discovered it in the morning, Combell had solved the issue within fifteen minutes,” Lowie says.

Stephan continues: “The attack happened during the night, yet our system never crashed even once. Honestly? I can’t remember a single moment when our website was offline.”

Complete trust in Combell

Giving away trips to Ibiza, playing shameless classics, organizing DJ battles … Everyone at TOP lives and breathes radio. They don’t want to worry about the hosting behind their millions of streams.

Stephan puts it this way:

“There’s complete trust in both Combell and our website developer. You’re a quiet but essential partner that simply does what needs to be done.

It wouldn’t be good if we constantly had to complain to you. On the contrary, everything runs stably, and that’s exactly how it should be.”

Hosting without limits

What advice would Lowie and Stephan give other media companies regarding the hosting of their online IT infrastructure?

“Find a partner that grows with you. Your hosting provider has to offer every possibility in terms of scalability and security.

Make sure you never run into technical limitations,” Stephan says. “Audio will never disappear, regardless of the format. TOPradio has to be prepared for that.”

Lowie gets the final word: “So you can grow from 40,000 to 1 million streams with ease – just like TOP did. Thanks in part to Combell.”

Thinking about making the move to Combell too?

Would you like to discuss your hosting infrastructure? Are you considering scaling up?

and choose a top-level partnership! 😁