The cabinet has published its plan to reform the Dutch public broadcasting system, which will replace the current 11 broadcasting organisations with four “broadcasting houses” from 2029.
News broadcaster NOS and educational broadcaster NTR will also merge under the NOS name, and no new broadcasters will be allowed to join the system, media minister Rianne Letschert told parliament on Friday, NOS reported.
The plan was first drawn up last year and was included in the coalition agreement and is open to public consultation.
Current system
There are currently 11 public broadcasting organisations under the umbrella of public broadcasting body NPO: AVROTROS, BNNVARA, EO, Human, KRO-NCRV, Max, Ongehoord Nederland (ON), PowNed, VPRO, WNL and Zwart.
Each has its own political, religious or social focus and together they make programmes for three national television channels and five radio stations.
To join, a group must sign up at least 50,000 paying members, which earns it a provisional licence for five years. To keep a permanent place it needs 100,000 members.
A broadcaster can lose its licence if the media regulator sanctions it twice in five years, if it no longer meets the legal requirements, or if the NPO says it refuses to cooperate with the others. These are the three grounds Letschert used last week when she said she would withdraw the licence of far-right broadcaster ON.
Under the new plan, the membership requirement is scrapped and broadcasters will no longer be able to join the system or be thrown out, although the regulator will still be able to act against wrongdoing.
Four houses
Which broadcasters go into which house has not been decided yet, but the broadcasters have already said who they want to work with: KRO-NCRV, Max and WNL; EO, VPRO and Human; AVROTROS and PowNed; and BNNVARA and Zwart.
Zwart, set up by rapper Akwasi to bring more diversity to television, has been broadcasting on a provisional licence since 2022 but still has to win a permanent one before it can join a house.
The houses can keep their old names or choose new ones, and will have more say over their own programming as the NPO’s coordinating role shrinks.
Letschert said the current system has too many boards and too much internal competition. “With less administrative bustle and more shared responsibility, the public broadcaster can focus on making good programmes, strong journalism and digital innovation,” she said.
The media regulator, the Commissariaat voor de Media, has criticised the plan, saying it gives broadcasters too few clear rules and relies too much on self-regulation.
The draft law goes next to the Council of State (Raad van State), the government’s senior advisory body on legislation, and then to parliament and the senate. The cabinet wants the new system to start in 2029.
