Advanced Television

RTL Group takes full ownership of RTL Belgium

December 1, 2020

RTL Group has agreed in principle with its co-shareholders in the Group’s Belgian TV and radio operations to acquire their shares in RTL Belgium against a payment in cash and RTL Group treasury shares. This will take RTL Group’s shareholding in RTL Belgium to 100 per cent. Currently, RTL Group is already the controlling shareholder in RTL Belgium.

Elmar Heggen, Chief Operating Officer and Deputy CEO of RTL Group, says: “After more than 30 years of successful cooperation with our co-shareholders, we have agreed to fully acquire RTL Belgium. This follows our strategy to consolidate across our European broadcasting footprint, wherever attractive opportunities arise. We will continue to invest in RTL Belgium and accelerate the transformation of the business, in particular via streaming services, advertising technology and data. We are looking forward to continuing the cooperation with our Belgian partners. They will remain closely associated with RTL Group.”

RTL Belgium’s three free-TV channels – RTL-TVI (family, general-interest), Club RTL (children, sports, classic movies and series) and Plug RTL (fiction, young culture, reality TV) – build the leading family of TV channels in French-speaking Belgium. In 2019, the RTL family of TV channels attracted a combined audience share of 34.5 per cent in the key commercial target group, 14.9 percentage points ahead of the public channels. RTL Belgium’s radio stations comprise Bel RTL (talk, general interest), Radio Contact (music) and the digital station Mint (pop rock music). The business unit also operates the streaming service RTL Play and the news website RTLInfo.be.

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