Finance

The Flemish government grants the VRT an annual financial envelope. This financial envelope is laid down in the coordinated media decrees. Further provisos are stipulated in the management contract.

The VRT implements a mixed financial system: next to government financing the VRT generates part of its resources from its own income from:

• Media advertising and sponsoring
• Exploitation of programs and other revenues, e.g. from contracts with distributors.
• Derived products, e.g. merchandising

The management contract imposes a limit on income from media advertising and sponsoring: 72,840,000 euro (to be annually indexed).

In this limit, there are two extra limits:

• The income from television sponsoring has been limited to 17,330,000 euro (to be annually indexed).
• The income from internet sponsoring has been limited to 3,000,000 euro (to be annually indexed).

In 1990 the (former) BRT and the Vlaamse Uitgeversmaatschappij (now Mediahuis) founded the Vlaamse audiovisuele regie (VAR). The VAR is now a 100% daughter company of the VRT.

The VAR provides services in the field of radio advertising, sponsoring and public service announcements.

Pebble Media (a daughter of Telenet and VAR) provides services in de the field of commercializing of websites (and other digital services via internet).