With 25 days to go before the early legislative elections, the editorial department of RTL Belgium kicked off the electoral campaign on Wednesday night. Hosted by journalist Laurent Haulotte, the debate brought together the two leading members of the French-speaking Community, Didier Reynders (President of the Reform Movement–MR) and Elio Di Rupo (President of the Socialist Party–PS). An encounter long awaited by the Belgians, the debate televised on RTL-TVI drew 632,200 viewers. This first event before the 13 June elections achieved a total audience share of 41.5 per cent.
Didier Reynders (President of the Reform Movement–MR) and Elio Di Rupo (President of the Socialist Party–PS).
RTL-TVI’s political programme scored the highest ratings that evening for a political debate, all channels combined, since the federal elections of 2003. In comparison, the debate televised on the public channel La Une drew the attention of 327,400 viewers, representing a total audience share of 21.2 per cent.
It is worth noting that on Wednesday evening, between 17:00 and 23:00, the RTL Belgium family achieved its best ratings for a Wednesday since November 2004 with a strong 48.3 per cent audience share. RTL Group’s Belgium family thus proved that there is complementarity among its three channels, with news and series on RTL-TVI, sport on Club RTL and entertainment on Plug RTL.