BRUSSELS — The Centrum voor Informatie over de Media (Media Information Center) has published audience reach data on podcasts and delayed listening in Belgium for the first time.
In February 2025, CIM started monthly analyzing millions of unique streams or downloads of more than a thousand programs — over 60,000 audio files. The on-demand audio is based on audio content registered to Belgium-based servers and analyzed by NeuroMedia, which specializes in media analysis. “This method provides a reliable report on audience data — the figures are enhanced with metadata such as program information,” added Maesschalk.
The Audio on Demand survey will publish the results of these streams and downloads, adding an extra dimension to the already available CIM radio ratings. The results will be published in a Top 100 format.
As a first step, the Audio on Demand survey contains ranking data of those radio stations currently measured in the CIM radio ratings, including the country’s leading stations and media groups. “The plan is to add news editors and independent podcast-makers in the next stage,” said Mathias Maesschalck, research executive at CIM.
VRT’s dominance
According to CIM, one remarkable result in the first Audio on Demand survey is that news and background information dominate the Top 10 programs in both the Dutch-speaking north and the French-speaking south parts of the country. The survey also showed that, in February, in addition to VRT’s 2.4 million radio listeners (source: CIM Sept-Dec 2024), the public broadcaster’s podcasts, episodes and radio programs were listened to 5.4 million times.
Flemish language leads the pack in audio-on-demand, over French, with Radio 1 and VRT NWS as the most successful brands in Flanders. The most popular podcast is “Het Kwartier” (The Quarter), produced by VRT NWS and aired on Radio 1 on weekdays between 6 p.m. and 6.15 p.m. during evening drive time. The podcast recorded over 570,000 replays in February. “Stoute Schoenen” (Brave Shoes), the new historical podcast launched in January and hosted by author Bart Van Loo on the VRT’s classical channel KlaRa, posted almost 407,000 downloads.
VRT’s dominance in the Audio on Demand survey is probably helped by VRT MAX, the public broadcaster’s own audio platform. It hosts all types of audio, live radio and podcasts, facilitating audience access to all available programs and audio fragments.
