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40 Communication Theory & Research
TABLE 4.2 ORIGIN OF FICTION (PERCENTAGE OF BROADCASTING TIME DEVOTED
TO FICTION: JANUARY 1997)
Non-national
National European a USA Other
Total Prime-time Total Prime-time Total Prime-time Total Prime-time

Flanders
Public 11.6 25.0 26.2 27.2 44.4 38.2 17.8 9.6
Commercial 5.1 11.9 10.0 4.4 79.5 82.3 5.4 1.4
Wallonia
Public − − 53.5 85.4 35.4 14.6 11.1 −
Commercial − − 21.0 37.0 75.6 63.0 3.4 −
The Netherlands
Public 28.3 44.6 30.0 21.7 36.1 31.6 5.6 2.1
Commercial 12.6 20.2 6.4 9.0 78.8 67.6 2.2 3.2
Great Britain
Public 27.8 60.6 2.2 − 53.7 39.4 16.9 −
Commercial 24.0 59.6 7.2 3.8 53.7 33.4 15.1 3.2
Germany
Public 50.0 77.4 25.0 18.5 19.6 4.1 5.4 −
Commercial 11.0 21.8 9.6 7.7 76.3 69.2 3.1 1.3
France
Public 22.0 57.7 25.1 22.1 52.9 20.2 − −
Commercial 29.9 47.3 8.2 − 60.7 52.7 1.2 −
Italy
Public 28.0 16.2 29.3 31.6 42.3 52.2 0.4 −
Commercial 19.8 19.0 7.5 5.3 61.9 73.0 10.8 2.7
Total
Public 28.0 40.9 25.1 26.6 40.3 30.8 6.6 1.7
Commercial 13.4 20.6 9.4 10.1 71.7 67.5 5.5 1.8
General total 17.3 26.5 13.5 14.9 63.4 56.8 5.8 1.8
a
Including European co-productions which means co-productions between European countries or
between a European country and a non-European country.

prime-time. This is much less the case in the ‘larger countries’ such as Great
Britain, France, Germany and Italy. In these countries only 12–27 percent of all
fiction is offered in prime-time. This is obviously due to the much longer
broadcasting hours, which causes fiction to be programmed in the morning,
afternoon and during the night as well.
Fiction from ‘other countries’ (such as Latin America, Australia and others)
does not receive a lot of opportunities in prime-time. Also, the non-national
European category is not broadcast in prime-time on several channels (e.g.
French commercial channels, British public channels) thus prime-time is
showing a bipolarization of national fiction on the one hand and US fiction on
the other hand.