Whether it was the first interview in French with Flemish separatist Bart De Wever, leader of the N-VA [New Flemish Alliance party], the debates of the four presidents of the French-speaking parties or their entire speeches at their headquarters, the Belgian channel was present wherever the political future of the country was being played out. In fact, by staying ahead of the public channel RTBF, RTL-TVI set the pace throughout election day, providing more than eight hours of continuous information with news produced by all of RTL Belgium’s editorial teams.
In terms of audiences, RTL-TVI was number one with the entire public in every time slot during this historic election day, whether it was for the mid-day special edition (46 per cent audience share), the entire afternoon (18.2 per cent), the 19:00 special edition (41.5 per cent) or the evening of the election (21.1 per cent).
The three peak audiences recorded that day, including all channels, were registered on RTL-TVI. And so, at 19:53, Socialist Elio Di Rupo’s victory speech was followed by 724,800 viewers. At 19:29, the first interview in French with N-VA President Bart De Wever was followed by 713,300 people and, at 20:01, Democrat president Joelle Milquet’s speech was followed by 717,900 people.
The day was also an undeniable success on the Web, with the RTLinfo.be website registering 118,842 unique visitors throughout the day.