France Télévisions is to introduce dedicated advertising windows on France 2, France 3, and France 5 in Belgium.
The French public broadcaster has established a partnership with RMB, RTBF’s advertising agency, who will handle the inventory on its behalf.
RMB has already been working with France TV Publicité, the French group’s advertising agency, since 2022 to market digital airtime in Belgium. The partnership is now expanding to linear television, with marketing effective from mid-October and the first advertising screens starting January 1, 2026.
This is the second French television group to cross the border, after TF1, which entered the Belgian advertising market in 2017.
However the plans have been met with anger from commercial broadcaster RTL Belgium, which called on politicians to “intervene urgently” and “take action to ensure that RTBF cannot knowingly contribute to weakening the local media ecosystem and the advertising market in the Wallonia-Brussels Federation.
RTL Belgium CEO Guillaume Collard is to “try to cancel this partnership” between RMB and France Télévisions, while François Le Hodey, CEO of the IPM group, owner of news network LN24 said “Seeing RTBF/RMB competing with Belgian private players to capture a portion of our small market for the benefit of French public institutions and RMB’s commercial margin is simply inaudible”.
In addition to RTBF, LN24, and France Télévisions, RMB also handles advertising space for the Belgian channels of the Mediawan group (AB3, ABX) and Be TV.
