The BBC is considering Brussels as the location for a new headquarters after Brexit to allow the corporation to continue to broadcast across the EU.
Belgium’s prime minister, Charles Michel, has disclosed that he held discussions on the possibility in Davos with the BBC’s director-general, Tony Hall.
“Belgium is often on the shortlist of companies eager to anchor in the European Union after Brexit,” Michel said from the Swiss town hosting World Economic Forum.
It is understood that the BBC is also looking at Netherlands and Ireland as potential sites.
The BBC will need EU-based licences for its international channels, which include BBC World, BBC Entertainment, BBC First, and BBC Earth, if it wishes to have them broadcast across Europe either after 29 March, if the UK leaves without a deal, or after the transition period, should the prime minister’s agreement be approved by parliament.
Theresa May has been seeking to include the audiovisual industry in a free trade agreement to avoid the problem, but her pleas have been ignored.
Earlier this month, the French president, Emmanuel Macron, confirmed his opposition to Downing Street’s request. He said in a letter to a concerned group that he had no intention of permitting the UK to continue to dominate the industry.
“France has consistently defended the exclusion of audiovisual services from free trade agreements,” he wrote. “This is an essential issue, which concerns the protection of cultural diversity.”
“Our country has made it a major point in every trade negotiation. It has thus obtained, in all the free trade agreements the EU has concluded, the exclusion of audiovisual services.”
As a result, to secure a pan-EU broadcast licence, the corporation will need to have the head office of the international operations in a member state, and locate a significant part of its workforce there.
More than 500 pan-European channels currently use licences issued by the British regulator Ofcom. International media companies reportedly spend about £1bn a year in the UK, making it the most significant such hub.
After Brexit the licences are likely to be invalid, however, as the UK will have left the EU’s single market.
Last September, the British online sports channel DAZN said it was opening a development centre in Amsterdam as it sought to realise its ambition of becoming the “Netflix of sports”. The channel provides livestreams of Champions League football, Formula One and the ATP tennis tour in both English and German-speaking countries plus Japan.
Turner Broadcasting System Deutschland and NBC Universal Global Networks Deutschland have also taken steps to secure EU licences.