Flemish (Brussels Morning Newspaper) – Flemish actor Chris Cauwenberghs reached the age of 78 before he died. Cauwenberghs is best known to the general public as Kabouter Lui in the Studio 100 series ‘Kabouter Plop’. He also played Fernand Verbist in ‘Thuis’ for many years.
Actor Christopher Cauwenberghs established his fame by playing Kabouter Lui in Kabouter Plop and Fernand Verbist in Thuis, while he was born in Hemiksem in 1947.
The training in drama at the Royal Conservatory of Brussels led him to his initial television work for BRT through roles in Merlina and Postbus X. His career made a major leap in the mid-1990s when he portrayed the police officer Fernand Verbist in the popular Flemish television show Thuis (1995–2000) until the writers killed his character in a narrative murder plot.
His career expanded at Studio 100 when he gained fame as Lui the Tired Hobgoblin, who starred in shows, movies and theatrical productions starting in 1997.
The cancer diagnosis Cauwenberghs received in 2014 required him to stop performing live because of his lymph node cancer. When news emerged in 2015 about his recovery from chemotherapy treatment, Cauwenberghs chose to stay away from the Lui character.
What is the history of Flemish television where Chris Cauwenberghs Worked?
The public broadcasting service BRT launched Flemish television in 1953, which later became VRT after serving Dutch-speaking Belgium. The commercial VTM television channel was developed in the 1980s and 1990s to challenge the dominance of VRT. VTM gained a 27% audience share upon launching in 1989, which expanded to 37% by 1993, and VRT experienced a consistent market share of ~25% throughout all three years.
In 2022, VRT1 maintained its status as Flanders’ leading television channel with an unknown exact audience share level, yet VTM followed closely with 18% viewership, and Play4 occupied the third position.
Stories and dramatic productions form the main components of Flemish broadcast programming. The television station RTBF (Wallonia’s broadcaster) dedicated 23% of its broadcasting schedule to fiction programming in 1997, which mirrored the identical distribution patterns observed in Flanders’ prime-time schedule.
As part of VRT’s 1990s organisation changes, the company organised its schedule to emphasise original programming with at least 50% native Flemish content during broadcast hours while creating shows such as Thuis (1995–present), which starred Cauwenberghs as Fernand Verbist. Studio 100 evolved into a cultural powerhouse that combined TV shows with numerous films alongside theatre adaptations for children.
