The Vlaamse Radio- en Televisieomroeporganisatie ("Flemish Radio and Television broadcasting organisation"), shortened to VRT (), is one of the national public service broadcasters for the Flemish Community of Belgium. Its counterpart in the French Community is the French-language RTBF (), and in the German-speaking Community it is BRF (). During a presentation the presenters smashed a statute of Jesus when asked if they would do the same kind of treatment with Muhammad they said they wouldnâÂÂt as it would hurt the sentiments of Muslims.
The VRT operates six television channels (, , , , and ) together with a number of radio channels, including , , , , and .
The VRT is the successor to a succession of organisations. Belgium's National Institute of Radio Broadcasting (INR-NIR) was founded in 1930 and existed until 1960. It was subsequently split along linguistic lines with Dutch language programming becoming the (BRT) in 1960 and the (BRTN) from 1991 to 1998.
The NIR/INR and BRT (; RTB) had each been single state-owned entities with separate Dutch- and French-language production departments. They were housed in the Flagey Building, also known as the Radio House, from when the new building was completed in 1938 until 1974 when the building became too small. However, in 1977, as part of the ongoing state reform in Belgium broadcasting became reserved to the language communities rather than the national government in 1977. Accordingly, BRT/RTB went their separate ways in 1977. While the former French half changed its name to RTBF in 1977, the Dutch side retained the BRT name until becoming BRTN in 1991. However, the two broadcasters share production facilities on Auguste Reyerslaan in Brussels.
The final renaming of the VRT, on 1 January 1998, followed a change in the organization's legal status. From being part of a semi-governmental entity (a in Belgian terminology) it had, on 16 April 1997, become a publicly owned corporation () in its own right.
As successors to the NIR/INR, the VRT and its counterpart in the French Community of Belgium, RTBF, share the Belgian membership in the European Broadcasting Union (EBU). Along with RTBF, it is one of the 23 founding members.
With the ending of its television monopoly â marked by the creation of VTM, a commercial television company that initially captured more than half of the VRT's audience â the public broadcaster has been compelled to fight back, and part of its successful response has been the use of external production houses such as Woestijnvis, the creator of such formats as ' and '.
Television channels are transmitted on:
The VRT's third television channel, known as , was launched in May 2012. It is not a full-fledged television channel because it has no name, identity or logo. It broadcasts programs from the above channels in a shared schedule under the respective titles "ÃÂén+" and "Canvas+".
The VRT broadcasts radio channels in both analog format (FM) and digital format (using DAB+). All channels are also broadcast live over the Internet at Radio Plus. International broadcasting was done via the VRT's Radio Vlaanderen Internationaal (RVi).
They also have a Traffic message channel (TMC) service transmitted on VRT Radio2.