By a media market analyst covering subscription economics and consumer behaviour in the Benelux television market.
The number was published quietly in May 2025 by the BIPT — Belgium’s Institute for Postal Services and Telecommunications — and received approximately the media attention you would expect from a regulatory annual report.
In 2024, 156,508 traditional television subscriptions were cancelled in Belgium. A 3.5% decline in one year. The total number of traditional TV subscriptions in Belgium fell just below 4 million for the first time. The number is notable on its own. What makes it significant is the acceleration: net TV subscription losses were 142,804 in 2024, versus 128,625 in 2023, versus 61,377 in 2022. The annual rate of loss has more than doubled in two years.
This is not a niche trend. This is a structural shift in how Belgium watches television, and it is happening faster than anyone predicted eighteen months ago.
What the Acceleration Looks Like
The BIPT data reveals a pattern consistent with adoption curve dynamics: slow early adoption followed by accelerating diffusion. The Belgian TV subscription market reached an inflection point somewhere in 2022-2023 where the rate of cancellation began compounding rather than staying flat.
For Proximus: in Q3 2024 alone, the company reported 13,000 net TV subscription losses — its own quarterly figures, separate from the BIPT annual count. Telenet has reported consistent quarterly TV subscriber declines for multiple years, citing ‘a further churn of our cable TV subscribers’ explicitly in investor communications.
The BIPT also noted, in the same 2025 report, that households watching television exclusively over internet connections increased by 13,704 in 2024. This is the flip side of the cancellation number — households are not abandoning television as a medium. They are switching how they receive it.
For Dutch viewers considering a similar switch, a IPTV Belgie subscription from a legitimate provider covers the full Belgian channel lineup — VTM, Play4, Play Sports, Een, Canvas, RTBF — at a fraction of the Telenet or Proximus equivalent monthly cost. The economics driving Belgian churn are identical on the Dutch side of the border.
The Price Increase Machinery
Understanding why Belgian subscribers are leaving requires understanding the price increase trajectory they have been absorbing.
In March 2026, Telenet raised the price of its ONE bundle (internet plus television plus mobile) from 100.91 to 104 euros per month. A comparable Proximus bundle is a minimum of 117.99 euros per month. Orange and VOO applied 2-4 euro monthly increases to their television packs from early 2026. Every major Belgian operator increased prices within the same twelve-month window.
These increases are not isolated events. The BIPT’s own pricing study for 2019-2024, published in April 2024, documented that prices for convergent packs — the bundles containing internet plus television — rose significantly over the five-year period while standalone internet prices remained stable or fell. Consumers who want both television and internet from the same provider pay progressively more over time for the television component specifically.
The Dutch Authority for Consumers and Markets, the ACM, tracks comparable trends in the Netherlands and documents accelerating cable TV subscription declines alongside rising bundle prices — a pattern running parallel to Belgium’s across both markets. The mechanisms are identical even if the specific operators and regulatory frameworks differ.
What Belgian Households Are Switching To
The BIPT data shows 13,704 new internet-only television households in 2024. These are households that watch television exclusively over their broadband connection — either through official streaming services like VTM GO and VRT MAX, or through IPTV subscriptions, or a combination.
An IPTV subscription covering the equivalent of a Telenet or Proximus television package costs between 15 and 25 euros per month. Against a Telenet bundle at 104 euros or Proximus at 117.99 euros, the arithmetic is not subtle. A household that cancels the television portion of its Telenet bundle, keeps internet at approximately 35-45 euros per month, and adds an IPTV subscription at 20 euros per month saves between 40 and 60 euros per month — 480 to 720 euros annually.
The channels available in that IPTV subscription include everything the cancelled Telenet package contained: VTM, Canvas, Een, Play Sports for Jupiler Pro League, RTBF for Walloon viewers, and Dutch channels alongside international content. The cost saving is not achieved by accepting less content. It is achieved by decoupling the television delivery mechanism from the cable operator.
The Business Psychology of Inertia
The more interesting question is not why 156,000 Belgians cancelled in 2024. It is why the remaining 4 million have not.
The answer has little to do with satisfaction and everything to do with switching friction. Belgian cable providers have structured their products to maximise exit friction: bundled billing that makes it difficult to calculate the television-specific cost, promotional pricing periods that delay the experience of the full price, decoder rental fees embedded in monthly billing that feel like a sunk cost, and contract terms that require advance notice periods for cancellation.
Test-Aankoop, Belgium’s independent consumer organisation, has documented that many Belgian consumers are unaware of their legal right to exit a cable subscription with appropriate notice, and are further unaware that the internet portion of a Telenet or Proximus bundle can often be retained as a standalone product after cancelling television.
When Belgian subscribers do cancel — the 156,000 who did so in 2024 — they overwhelmingly cite price as the primary reason. Not quality. Price. The service was working well enough. The monthly charge arrived and finally crossed a threshold that prompted action.
What the Acceleration Tells Us About 2026 and Beyond
The doubling of the net cancellation rate between 2022 and 2024 — from 61,377 to 142,804 — follows an adoption curve that, if extrapolated, implies further acceleration in 2025 and 2026. Social proof compounds: when a Belgian household discovers that their neighbour, colleague, and sibling have all switched and all describe the experience as straightforward, the psychological friction of switching diminishes.
Telenet itself acknowledged the dynamic explicitly in investor communications, describing ‘increasing and strong competition in the domestic TV market’ and forecasting continued subscriber churn. This is not a short-term adjustment. The Belgian television distribution market is undergoing a structural shift whose pace is currently being set by the gap between what traditional operators charge and what internet-delivered alternatives cost.
For those experiencing problems with IPTV setup during or after a provider switch, IPTV werkt niet covers the most common failure modes that new IPTV users encounter in the Belgian and Dutch market.
Consumer rights in digital subscription services — including the legal right to cancel, required notice periods, and what legitimate providers are obligated to offer — are covered by Kassa, BNNVARA’s consumer affairs programme, which has reported extensively on both Dutch and Belgian digital subscription markets.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many Belgian TV subscriptions were cancelled in 2024?
156,508 traditional TV subscriptions were cancelled in 2024, according to the BIPT annual report published in May 2025. This represents a 3.5% decline, bringing total Belgian TV subscriptions just below 4 million.
Is the rate of Belgian TV subscription cancellations accelerating?
Yes. Net TV subscription losses were 61,377 in 2022, 128,625 in 2023, and 142,804 in 2024 — more than doubling over two years. The BIPT report explicitly notes the acceleration.
How much does a Telenet TV bundle cost in 2026?
The Telenet ONE bundle (internet, television, mobile) rose to 104 euros per month in early 2026. A comparable Proximus bundle costs a minimum of 117.99 euros per month. Both operators applied price increases in 2026.
Can I keep my Telenet internet connection after cancelling the TV portion?
In most cases, yes. Telenet and Proximus offer standalone internet subscriptions. Cancelling the television component of a bundle while retaining internet is legally possible with the appropriate notice period. Contact your operator for the specific terms of your contract.
How much can a Belgian household save by switching from cable to IPTV?
A household cancelling a Telenet TV bundle and subscribing to an IPTV service typically saves 40-60 euros per month — 480 to 720 euros annually — while accessing equivalent or greater channel coverage. The saving is achieved by decoupling television delivery from the cable operator rather than reducing content.
What is the BIPT?
The BIPT (Belgisch Instituut voor Postdiensten en Telecommunicatie) is Belgium’s independent telecom regulator, equivalent to the Dutch ACM. It publishes annual reports on the Belgian telecommunications market including subscriber counts, pricing trends, and infrastructure development.
All data cited reflects publicly available sources as of April 2026. BIPT figures are from the BIPT 2024 Annual Report as reported by VRT NWS on 30 May 2025. Pricing figures reflect publicly advertised Belgian operator prices as of early 2026.
