Inhabitants: 11,56 million (2021)
Official Languages: Dutch (60%), French (40%), German (<1%)
Households: 5,06 million (2021)
Religions: Roman Catholic 75%, others 25%
Big cities: Brussels (1.4 million), Antwerp (1.01 million), Liège (612,740)
Form of government: Constitutional monarchy, bicameral system, federal state
Head of State: King Philippe (since July 2013)
Head of the government: Prime minister Alexander De Croo (Open Vlaamse Liberalen en Democraten, seit 2020)
EU-member since: 1952 (at the time EG)
Unemployment rate: 6,3 % (2021)
State indebtedness: 2021: 548,8 billion euro; 2013: 385,47 billion euro; 2007: 282,11 billion euro
Budget balance relative to GDP: 2021: -6.04%; 2013: -2.64%; 2009: -5.64%; 2007: -0.10%Share of global GDP: 2021: 0.45%; 2012: 0.51%
Advertisement costs total: 1,83 billion euro (2021)
Large media and communication companies: Proximus, Corelio, DPG Media, Kinepolis Group, Orange Belgium, RTBF, RTL Group, Sanoma, Tecteo, Telenet, VMM, VRT
Monthly public broadcasting fee: None, public broadcasters are funded by taxes.

Introduction

A characteristic feature of the Belgian media landscape is its federal structure, which reflects the cultural and political division of the country. The political-administrative system is divided into three different regions with their own legislative and executive institutions (Flanders, Wallonia and Brussels). In parallel, the country is divided into three communities (Flemish-speaking, French-speaking and German-speaking communities), which in turn have their own parliaments and governments. Another political level is formed by the numerous provinces of Belgium. Above these three levels is the Belgian federal government, which governs national affairs, and above that is the supranational decision-making level of the European Union.

As a consequence of Belgian federalism, each of the Belgian communities has its own media organisations that operate independently of each other. There are no national media in which the Flemish-speaking, French-speaking and German-speaking communities co-operate with each other. Only the news agency BELGA is cross-community. However, it is divided into three editorial offices, each of which organises and publishes news separately for one of the Belgian communities. In addition, the Belgian media report relatively rarely on events in the other parts of the country, which in turn makes a decisive contribution to the cultural and ideological division of the country.

Geographically speaking, Belgium is very small with an area of 30,528 km². However, Belgium has over 10 million inhabitants, a large proportion of whom - over 90 per cent - use the internet. In the 2000s, economic and geographical developments encouraged the comparatively rapid expansion of the cable network in Belgium - the most common form of internet connection in the country today, even though more and more users are switching to fibre optics.

Over 1,000 journalists are accredited in Belgium, as the capital Brussels is the central location of the European institutions. Many of the journalists accredited in Brussels therefore report less on events at regional or national level than at European level. According to the French/German-speaking journalists' association AJP, a quarter of Belgian journalists do not earn enough to live on. In Belgium, young freelance journalists and graduates are particularly affected by precarious working conditions.

Press

Since the 1960s, the Belgian press landscape has been characterised by a process of increasing ownership concentration. At the same time, more and more daily newspapers are disappearing from the market. In the French-speaking community (Wallonia) in particular, circulation is falling steadily. Since 2012, there has no longer been a daily newspaper in Flanders whose circulation is not falling. Nevertheless, the Flemish print media make up more than half of the Belgian newspaper industry.
 
Three groups of companies control the newspaper market in Flanders: Corelio Media (once VUM) with the newspapers De Standaard, Het Nieuwsblad, De Gentenaar and Het Volk, De Persgroep with Het Laatste Nieuws, De Nieuwe Gazet, De Morgen and De Tijd/L’Echo (with an ownership of 50%) and also Concentra (also known as RUG) with the Gazet of Antwerp, Het Belang van Limburg and the free newspaper Metro. The press landscape in Wallonia is also dominated by just three media companies, which are market leaders in terms of both sales and advertising revenue: Rossel with the newspapers Le Soir, La Meuse, La Capital, La Nouvelle Gazette, La Province und De Tijd/L’Echo (with an ownership of 50%), IPM with the La Libre Belgique and La Derière Heute aswell as Medi@bel with Vers L'Avenir, Le Jour/Le Courrier and Le Courrier de l'Escaut. As Medi@bel has a stake in IPM, the newspaper publishers Rossel and Medi@bel/IPM have a duopoly in the French-speaking community of Belgium. In the German-speaking Community of Belgium, only one newspaper is published by its own small publishing house, half of which is owned by the Walloon Rossel: Grenz-Echo.

In the Belgian magazine market as a whole, the Belgian branch of the Finnish media giant Sanoma with its diverse Flemish and French-language magazines Flair, Story, TeVe-Blad and Gael (among others) is the most dominant. The weekly magazine publisher Roularta, the dutch publishing house Audax and the media company Think Media play an important role. The most popular magazines among Belgians are the Flemish Knack and the Walloon Le Vif/L'Express.

The majority of newspaper and magazine publishers in Belgium are now controlled by holding companies, even though they were founded as family businesses. Only in the Flemish publishing groups De Persgroep and Concentra do the Van Thillo and Theelen families still own the largest shares. The ownership structures of the Belgian press companies have remained predominantly Belgian since their foundation. The Walloon publisher Rossel also owns 85% of the French publisher La Voix du Nord and the Flemish publisher De Persgroep owns more than half of the Dutch daily newspaper Het Parool. When the Flemish publisher Corelio Media bought the Walloon group Medi@bel in 2006, it contributed to the increasing national media concentration. In the same year, the Flemish publishing house De Persgroep and the Walloon publishing house Rossel joined forces in the jointly founded company Mediafin to save the financial dailies Die Tijd/L'Echo. Belgian press companies are increasingly becoming multimedia players, as they not only publish newspapers and magazines, but also enter the radio and television broadcasting business.

It is difficult to determine how independent the Belgian press actually is. Critics claim that Flemish dailies in particular are still under the influence of the Catholic Church and the Christian Democratic Party, although all Belgian newspapers officially severed their ties in the course of the 1990s to prove their independence. Since the Walloon daily Le Matin was forced to leave the press landscape in 2001, no left-wing orientated newspaper has existed in the French-speaking part of Belgium. In Flanders, the only social-democrat-orientated daily newspaper De Morgen only survived a temporary crisis thanks to a takeover by De Persgroep.

Television

The separate systems of Flemish-language, French-language and German-language television in Belgium are linked not only by a well-developed cable network, but also by strong competition from television channels in Belgium's neighbouring countries. In the German-speaking community (75,000 inhabitants) and among the several thousand German-speaking inhabitants of Brussels, the German television channels are used particularly frequently. When the public broadcasters from Germany wanted to double their feed-in fee in Belgium as part of the introduction of the licence fee, the telecommunications company Belgacom (now called Proximus) the german broadcasters ARD and ZDF from the Belgium programme and replaced them with RTL, Sat1 and Pro7. More than 4,000 Belgian viewers signed an online petition calling for the German public broadcaster to resume broadcasting. No agreement has yet been reached.

After the three Belgian communities broadcast their very first television programmes on a joint public service broadcaster in 1953, the supra-regional organisation was split into two separate broadcasters in 1960: today's Flemish VRT (Vlaamse Radio- en Televisieomroep) with the well known channels Één and Ketner/Canvas and the wallonian RTBF (Radio Television Belge Francophone) with the channels Mood, La Deux and La Trois. On 18 February 1977, the German-speaking Community also received an autonomous public broadcaster with its headquarters in Eupen: the BRF (Belgian Radio and Television Centre of the German-speaking Community) with a television station of the same name.

Since 1973, a legally binding disclosure of party representation on the broadcasting councils has been intended to protect the diversity of ideological and philosophical movements in Belgium. However, even twenty years after the introduction of this legal regulation, the then director of the VRT considered it necessary to implement reforms in the context of which he ‘depoliticised’ the management level of his broadcaster, increased the overall budget and abolished the civil servant status of employees. Parallel to the wave of reforms in Flanders, the RTBF was de-bureaucratised, restructured and staffed at the end of the 1990s.

As part of the reorganisation of Belgian public broadcasters, the licence fee was abolished in Wallonia. Since 2002, the VRT has also no longer been financed by a licence fee. Both the French-speaking and Flemish-speaking communities now have a dual financing system, which provides for income from tax revenues (65% in Flanders, 70% in Wallonia) on the one hand and from commercial activities on the other. The VRT allows sponsorship on television and radio, but advertising is only permitted on radio. RTBF, on the other hand, has been legally permitted to advertise on television since 1997. While VRT's income continues to rise, it is planning a third, analogue channel and is investing in the development of streaming for new types of receivers. In contrast, BRF had to cut jobs for the first time in its history due to a budget deficit in summer 2012.

Like most of its European neighbours, Belgium initiated the privatisation of the television market in the 1980s. The first private television station in Flanders, VTM (Vlaamse Televisie Maatschappij)The VMM (Vlaamse Media Maatschappij) started surprisingly successfully in 1989 with a market share of 37%. It was founded by VMM (Vlaamse Media Maatschappij), which is owned equally by the publishing group De Persgroep and the magazine publisher Roularta. When new competition arose in 1995 from the channel VT4 (owned by ProSiebenSat.1 until 2011, now owned by the Finnish group Sanoma), VMM responded by founding the channel 2BE. With the emergence of channels such as Vijf TV (also owned by Sanoma), Vitaya, TMF, JIM-TV and VTMKZoom, the Flemish television market became increasingly fragmented. Although VTM is now the leading private TV broadcaster, it can no longer hold its own against the public broadcaster Één (30.1%) with a reduced market share of 19.5%.

Table I: The ten most-watched television channels in Flanders in 2022

Rank	TV-channel	Parent company	Market share (in %)
1.	Één	VRT	30.1 %
2.	vtm	DPG Media	19.5 %
3.	FOUR	Telenet	7.2 %
4.	Canvas	VRT	5.4 %
5.	vtm3	DPG Media	4.3 %
6.	vtm2	DPG Media	3.8 %
7.	VIJF	Telenet	3.0 %
8.	Zes	Telenet	2.1 %
9.	vtm4	DPG Media	2.0 %
10.	Ketnet	VRT	1.3 %

Source: Hrvatska turisti?ka zajednica (2022)

When the channel RTL-TVi (belongs with 66% to the RTL Group and 34% of various French-language newspaper publishers) came onto the Belgian market in 1987, the channel was able to gain a dominant position despite the adverse circumstances - most French-speaking Belgians were already accustomed to the private channels from their neighbouring country France - which is now held by the public broadcaster La Une. In the course of the 1990s, further private TV channels of the RTL Group, which is subject to Luxembourg law in Belgium, emerged: Club RTL and Plug RTLFrench channels like AB3, France 2, France 5 or TF1 have not yet been squeezed out of the market by their Walloon competitors.

Table II: The ten most watched TV channels in Wallonia in 2022

Rank	TV-channel	Parent company	Market share (in %)
1.	Mood	RTBF	20.1 %
2.	RTL VTI	RTL Group	19.5 %
3.	TF1	TF1 Group	12,4 %
4.	France 2	France Televisions	7 %
5.	Tipik	RTBF	4.7 %
6.	AB3	AB Groupe	4.5 %
7.	Club RTL	RTL Group	3.5 %
8.	Plug RTL	RTL Group	1.8 %
9.	Arte	Arte	1.7 %
10.	France 5	France Televisions	1.4 %

Source: Hrvatska turisti?ka zajednica (2022)

radio

Belgium's public radio broadcaster, the Belgisch Nationaal Instituut voor de Radio-Omroep (NIR)/Institut National de Radiodiffusion (INR), which was founded in 1930, broke up after 30 years. It split into the Flemish broadcaster Vlaamse Radio en Televisie (VRT) and the current Walloon broadcaster Radio-Télévison Belge de la Communauté Française (RTBF).

The market dominance of VRT and its stations Radio 1, Radio 2, Klara, Studio Brussel and MNM could have been weakened with the privatization of Flemish radio in 1981. However, competition between public and private radio stations was made considerably more difficult. The first private radio stations, Q-Music from VTM and 4FM from Think Media, only received a license allowing them to broadcast their programs nationwide two decades later (2002). Even today, the public broadcaster Radio 2 is more popular than its private, Flemish competitors (see Table IV).

In the French-speaking Community, private radio stations were allowed to broadcast their programmes nationwide 17 years before those in the Flemish-speaking Community. This is probably the reason why they have had a higher market share than public radio stations in Wallonia for a long time, although the public radio station Vivacité is now number 1 (see Figure II). Nevertheless, private radio cannot be said to dominate, since French-speaking Belgians on average enjoy listening to private radio stations such as Radio Contact (RTL Group), Bel RTL (RTL Group and Rossel), Radio Nostalgie and Fun Radio as well as public radio stations such as La Première, Vivacité, Musiq’3, Classic 21 and Pure/Tipik.

The radio system of the German-speaking community was created in 1977 with the broadcast of a radio program by BRF until 10 p.m. every day and grew twenty years later to include another public radio station. Since 2001, BRF has operated the station BRF1 for fans of rock and pop music, BRF2 for pop music lovers and the radio station BRF-DLF.

Fig. I: The ten leading Flemish-language radio stations in Belgium in 2021 (by listener market share)

Source: Götting (2022a)

Fig. II: The ten leading French-language radio stations in Belgium in 2021 (by listener market share)

Source: Götting (2022b)

Internet

The Internet is an extremely popular medium among Belgians and ranks among the top countries in the world in terms of the total number of users (92%), fixed-line broadband users, mobile broadband users and Internet hosts. The various Internet providers mostly offer download speeds of 30 Mbit/s to 1 Gbit/s and upload speeds of 10 Mbit/s to 75 Mbit/s. In a European comparison, Belgium thus occupies a solid mid-field position, and is ranked 41st worldwide.

Due to the high demand for its search engine and email service on the Belgian market, Google decided in April 2013 to invest 300 million euros in its Belgian data center south of Brussels. In addition, Google made headlines in Belgium for over six years because the company had to remove the links of some French-language newspapers from the Google News search index due to a licensing dispute. Since the Belgian publishers agreed in 2012 to stop demanding fines, the newspapers can be found on Google News. The agreement subsequently formulated between Google and the Belgian publishers is comparable to the ancillary copyright for press publishers introduced in Germany in 2013.

Among the ten most popular websites in Belgium, in addition to the usual providers of social networks and email services, there are also two sites operated by Belgian media groups, Nieuwsblad.be (7th place) and Sporza.be (8th place). While Sporza.be is a sports event streaming service from the Flemish public broadcaster VRT, Nieuwsblad.be is the online counterpart of the Flemish daily newspaper of the same name.

Although both Flemish and Walloon newspapers and magazines have the opportunity to place advertisements on their own websites, they have lost a significant number of advertisers to online competitors since 2010. The number of those who prefer to place their advertisements online rather than in the press or on the radio is steadily increasing.

Tab. III: The most visited websites in Belgium in 2022

Rank	Webpage:	Description	Parent company
1.	Google.com	Search engine	Alphabet Inc.
2.	YouTube.com	Video portal	Alphabet Inc.
3.	Facebook.com	Social network	Meta Platforms, Inc.
4.	Hln.be	News	DPG Media
5.	Google.be	Search engine	Alphabet Inc.
6.	Live.com	Webmail service	Microsoft Corporation
7.	Nieuwsblad.be	News	Corelio
8.	Sporza.be	Streaming platform	VRT
9.	Wikipedia.org	Encyclopedia	Wikimedia Foundation
10.	Instagram.com	Social network	Meta Platforms, Inc.

Source: Similarweb.com

Regulations

Since broadcasting in Belgium was legally subordinated to cultural policy in 1971, the Belgian federal governments transferred more and more media policy powers to the communities. Broadcasting and media regulation now takes place primarily at the community level. Consequently, each of the three communities also has its own media supervisory authority. The Flemish Regulator for Media (VRM) is responsible for monitoring the Flemish media sector, publishing an annual report on the state of media concentration and issuing licences for new radio and television stations. The same requirements must be met in parallel by the Walloon supervisory authority Conseil Supérieur de l'Audiovisuel de la Communauté Française (CSA) and the Media Council of the German-speaking Community of Belgium All three are, in addition to the Belgian Institute for Postal Services and Communication, members of the Conference of Regulators for Electronic Communications Networks.
 
Although the usual competition rules and accounting regulations exist in Belgium's neoliberal media system, critics say that specific anti-concentration laws, restrictions on cross-media ownership structures and obligations in the press sector to disclose ownership structures are lacking.
The year 1971 was important for Belgium in terms of media policy, not only because the responsibilities for broadcasting policy were transferred from the national to the regional level, but also because the supra-regional journalists’ association Association Générale des Journalistes Professionnels de Belgique (AJP)/Algemene Vereniging van Beroeps-journalists in Belgi? (AVBB) became self-regulatory for the first time by signing the European “Declaration of the Duties and Rights of Journalists”. Forty years later, the Flemish Press Council (Council for Journalism) a press code that applies only to Flanders and is based on the idea of ​​accountability.

The Belgian media actors of the three communities not only operate in isolation from one another, but are also regulated differently. For example, since 1991 the Walloon CSA has prohibited right-wing extremist parties from participating in political talks on the national elections, which is permitted by the Flemish regulatory authority VRM. The NGO Reporters Without Borders describes this as a surreal situation that denies Belgians equal access to political education. The strong result of the right-wing extremist party "Vlaams Belang" in the Belgian national parliamentary elections in 2019 shows how dangerous it is for the democratic unity of the country that a cross-community, public debate is hardly possible in Belgium due to the divided media system.

Sources/Literature

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• Directorate General for Internal Policies (Policy Department C: Citizens' Rights and Constitutional Affairs): The Citizens' Right to Information – Law and Policy in the EU and its Member States – Study, June 2012, pp. 114-144.
• Els de Bens, Belgium, in: Mary Kelly, Gianpietro Mazzoleni, Denis McQuail (eds.): The Media in Europe: The Euromedia Handbook, Euromedia 2004, pp. 16-30.
• Els de Bens, The Belgium Media Landscape, in: Georgios Terzis (ed.): European Media Governance. National and Region Dimensions, Intellect Books 2007, pp. 74-83.
• European Audiovisual Observatory: Yearbook 2012. Television, film, video and on-demand audiovisual services in Europe. 2012. Vol. 1, Strasbourg 2012.
• Frédéric Antoine, Leen d'Haenens, Frieda Says, Belgium, in: Leen d'Haenens, Frieda Says (ed.): Western Broadcasting at the Dawn of the 21st Century, Mouton de Gruyer 2001, pp. 147-193.
• Götting, Marie C.: Leading Dutch-language radio stations in Belgium in 1st half 2021, by audience market share, 2022a.
• Götting, Marie C.: Leading French-language radio stations in Belgium in 1st half 2021, by audience market share, 2022b.
• Kenneth Dyson, Peter Humphreys, Ralph Negrine (eds.): Broadcasting and New Media Policies in Western Europe, Routledge 2002.
• Reporters without Borders: State TV broadcaster cancels political debate in run-up to elections, 31.05.2010.