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15 Jul 2025
Commissioned by the Flemish Minister of Media, this research report investigates findability, discoverability, and due prominence for audiovisual and auditive media services.
We’re pleased to announce that the study conducted by Prof. Dr. Tim Raats, Dr. Adelaida Afilipoaie, Pieter Van der Elst, and Noëmie Forest for the Flemish Minister of Media and the Department of Culture, Youth and Media has now been officially published. The report, titled Study on appropriate prominence, visibility and findability for audiovisual and auditive media services of general interest in Flanders, is now available via the Department’s website.
📄 Read the full study (in Dutch) here: 👉 https://www.vlaanderen.be/publicaties/studie-omtrent-passende-aandacht-zichtbaarheid-en-vindbaarheid-voor-audiovisuele-en-auditieve-mediadiensten-van-algemeen-belang-in-vlaanderen
The study addresses a pressing policy question: How can we ensure that audiovisual and audio media services of general interest remain findable, discoverable, and appropriately prominent in the digital media environment — and what additional policy measures might be needed in Flanders to achieve this?
As part of our academic work on media policy and platform regulation, we developed this research as a contribution to the Flemish media policy agenda. The report:
Maps the current Flemish landscape on the matter
Compares with international practices and emerging regulatory approaches across Europe
And formulates recommendations for a future-proof policy framework.
We’re also pleased to see that the report has already had direct policy impact: it served as a reference work for the Department in drafting new plans around prominence and findability, which were approved by the Flemish Government in early July. These plans make Flanders one of the first smaller media markets in the EU to introduce a legal framework explicitly addressing prominence for media services of general interest — a notable development in the implementation of Article 7a of the EU Audiovisual Media Services Directive (AVMSD).
This project reflects the broader media policy research of our SRP Media team at imec-SMIT. An academic publication on the topic of due prominence for media services of general interest — authored by Pieter, Adelaida, and Tim as part of Pieter’s ongoing PhD research on the platformization of public service media — is also forthcoming.