The new channel will bring changes for foreigners living in all of Belgium. (The VRT is carried by law on all cable systems in Brussels and Wallonia.) The VRT has promised to include English-language programming on the third channel, which presumably means home-produced content, since much of the existing VRT drama and movie scheduling is already in English.

“After 20.00 there will be room to serve other specific groups, such as young people, and foreigners who live in Flanders,” said board chairman Luc Van den Brande (pictured), speaking at the broadcaster’s New Year reception. “As the largest cultural institution in Flanders, the VRT has the duty to contribute to the culture by improving its output online, as well as with new English output on TV.”

For children, Ketnet will broadcast until 20.00 every evening, now without the sports coverage by Sporza interfering with their transmissions. From September 2013 there will also be programming for older children. The exact content of Canvas are still to be announced. The existing digital channels Een+, Ketnet+ and Canvas+, will disappear on 1 May.

VRT will also review its English-language services, which largely consists of the website flandersnews.be. That site contains reports and some voiced-over video fragments from the VRT’s main news output. On 1 January, Radio Vlaanderen Internationaal, the VRT’s service for Flemish people living abroad, closed down on medium wave. The service is now available worldwide by satellite and via the internet.