RTBF

The communications tower at RTBF's headquarters in Brussels.

Originally named the Belgian National Broadcasting Institute (French: INR, Institut national belge de radiodiffusion; Dutch: NIR, Belgisch Nationaal Instituut voor de Radio-omroep), the state-owned broadcasting organization was established by law on 18 June 1930. On 14 June 1940 the INR was forced to cease broadcasting as a result of the German invasion. The German occupying forces, who now oversaw its management, changed the INR's name to Radio Bruxelles. A number of INR personnel were able to relocate to the BBC's studios in London from where they broadcast as Radio Belgique / Radio België under the Office de Radiodiffusion Nationale Belge (RNB) established by the Belgian government in exile's Ministry of Information.

At the end of the war the INR and the RNB coexisted until 14 September 1945, when a Royal Decree merged the two and restored the INR's original mission. The INR was one of 23 broadcasting organizations which founded the European Broadcasting Union in 1950. Television broadcasting from Brussels began in 1953, with two hours of programming each day. In 1960 the INR was subsumed into RTB (Radio-Télévision Belge) and moved to new quarters at the Reyers building in 1967. RTB's first broadcast in colour, Le Jardin Extraordinaire (a gardening and nature programme), was transmitted in 1971. Two years later, RTB began broadcasting news in colour.

In 1977, broadcasting became a concern for Belgium's language communities, rather than the national government as a whole. Accordingly, the French-language section of RTB became RTBF (Radio-Télévision Belge de la Communauté française) and a second television channel was set up with the name RTbis.[4] In 1979 RTbis became Télé 2.[5] Along with French channels TF1, Antenne 2, FR3 and Swiss channel TSR, RTBF jointly established the European French-speaking channel TV5 in 1984. On 21 March 1988, Télé 2 became Télé 21.[5] On 27 September 1989 a joint-venture company of RTBF and Vivendi was set up with the name Canal Plus TVCF, which subsequently became Canal Plus Belgique in May 1995. In 1993, Télé 21 was replaced by Arte/21 and Sport 21.

In mid January 2010, RTBF adopted the new branding of RTBF.be in its main logo.[6] The change was made because of the growing importance of new media. The '.be' suffix stresses these new developments. RTBF.be underlines that this change isn't anecdotal and that the internet has gained its place in the media landscape, just as TV and radio have done years ago.

On 11 June 2013, RTBF was one of the few European public broadcasters to join in condemning the closure of Greece's public broadcaster ERT.

By 2011, the analogue systems for RTBF.be were planned to be phased out for Wallonia.

• 
  RTBF's third logo from 1984–1991
• 
  RTBF's fourth logo from 1991–1997
• 
  RTBF's fifth logo from 1997–2005
• 
  RTBF's former logo.

Television channels are transmitted:

• On Hotbird satellite on TéléSAT, an encrypted pay satellite service.
• On cable: analogue and digital on all Belgian cable providers, as well as on cable in Luxembourg;[7]
• On DSL lines through IPTV to Proximus, Scarlet and Billi customers, as well as PostTV in Luxembourg;[8]
• On satellite free-to-air worldwide as a participant in francophone TV5Monde channel;
• On digital terrestrial television using DVB-T on UHF and VHF frequencies in Brussels and Wallonia.

The RTBF broadcasts radio channels in either analogue format (FM and digital format (using DAB and DVB-T). All channels are also broadcast live over the Internet.

Wikinews has related news: Fictional documentary about Flemish independence causes consternation in Belgium

On 13 December 2006, at 20:21 CET (19:21 UTC), RTBF replaced an edition of its regular current affairs programme Questions à la Une with a fake special news report in which it was claimed that Flanders had proclaimed independence, effectively dissolving the Belgian state. The programme had been preceded by a caption reading "This may not be fiction", which was repeated intermittently as a subtitle to the images on screen. After the first half-hour of the 90-minute broadcast, however – by which point RTBF.be's response line had been flooded with calls – this was replaced with a caption reading "This is fiction".

The video featured images of news reporters standing in front of the Flemish Parliament, while Flemish separatists waved the flag of Flanders behind them. Off to the side, Francophone and Belgian nationalists were waving Belgian flags. The report also featured footage of King Albert and Queen Paola getting on a military jet to Congo, a former Belgian colony.

RTBF justified the hoax on the grounds that it raised the issue of Flemish nationalism, but others felt that it raised the issue of about how much the public can trust the press.

• List of television channels in Belgium
• Public Francophone Radios

• (in French) Official website