Last year, 32,162 different songs by 13,814 different artists were played on the seven largest Flemish radio networks (Radio 1, Radio2, Studio Brussels, MNM, Qmusic, JOE and Play Nostalgie), the VRT Study Department calculated based on data from Radiomonitor. 69 percent of these (22,065 songs) were only played on the VRT radio networks.
You also heard 8,337 artists (60 percent) only on one of the four most important radio networks of the public broadcaster. Klara is not included because of its special character. But even if the three main digital channels (Willy, De Tijdloze and TOPradio) are included, half of all the different songs on the ten radio networks can only be heard on VRT. Radio 1 provides a third of the unique offering, good for 10,472 songs and 3,336 artists that you only heard there.
Do those figures make much of an impression? Not really, because the music formats of Qmusic, JOE and Play Nostalgie are by definition very scary and risk-free. That’s why they are commercial radios. So it is not even a special achievement to ‘successfully’ distinguish yourself from those three as a VRT radio.
Ed Sheeran was the most played artist on the seven largest Flemish radio networks in 2023, but also on VRT in general with 3,070 spins. Dua Lipa and Taylor Swift complete the top 3 on the VRT networks. The top 10 of most played artists on the VRT radio stations also includes three homegrown artists: Pommelien Thijs in 4th place who was played 2,553 times, Camille at 6 (2,535) and Berre at 7 (2,258).
“Many major Belgian artists would not be featured without VRT-net,” claims the VRT. It is even the headline of the story: “Without VRT, no Compact Disk Dummies, Melanie de Biasio, Warhaus or Zwangere Guy”. But that claim – even though we want to believe it – is not substantiated with any figures. The VRT does not even mention a figure for the number of Belgian artists/acts played compared to the total number of artists.
Also – at least in the VRT’s own communications – no distinction is made anywhere between daytime, evening or night hours, although they differ enormously in listening density. It is not the first time that (Belgian) artists – the few who dare to do it – complain that their songs are only played on the radio at night. Just to say that such figures always remain relative.
