VRT CEO Frederik Delaplace refutes in a weekend interview that the board of the public broadcaster was not aware of the deal he made with the streaming platform Streamz.
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Frederik Delaplace has been CEO of the public broadcaster for less than fifty days when the first political fire has already been put out.
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There is controversy in the politically composed board of directors about the license deal that the brand new CEO concluded with Streamz, the streaming platform of the commercial players Telenet (Vier) and DPG Media (VTM) that started this week. The VRT delivers 1,500 episodes of VRT titles such as FC De Kampioenen and Het Eiland, as it already did with Telenet’s Play payment package.
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The board of directors was unaware of the deal with Streamz.
Dirk Sterckx
VRT driver (Open VLD)
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Dirk Sterckx, who represents Open VLD on the board, states that ‘the board should have approved the cooperation with Streamz in advance. Which has not happened. The council was not even informed. ‘ This is evident from an e-mail that Sterckx sent early this month to chairman Luc Van den Brande (CD&V) and which De Standaard could view. The Vlaams Belang and Groen also think that the board of directors should have been consulted beforehand.
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CEO Delaplace refutes in a weekend interview with De Tijd – which will appear on Saturday – that there is commotion in the VRT board of directors about Streamz. ‘But I’m not going to say much about it. It is a good thing that the VRT is participating in Streamz and the deal was only finalized 24 hours before the press conference. Communication could have been better as a result. I will explain the decision to the board of directors on Monday. I am not going to have this discussion in the newspaper. ‘
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So to be continued on Monday. Then the directors meet.
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Strategic or licensing deal?
The media decree provides that the board of directors is competent for strategic decisions of the public broadcaster. Minister of Media Benjamin Dalle (CD&V) declared in the Flemish Parliament on Thursday that the collaboration with Streamz is a license agreement and not a strategic deal.
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