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Dutch public broadcasting system

The Dutch public broadcasting system (Dutch: Nederlands publiek omroepbestel) is a group of organizations that are responsible for public service television and radio broadcasting in the Netherlands. It is composed of the Nederlandse Publieke Omroep (NPO) foundation, which acts as its governing body, and a number of public broadcasters. The Dutch Media Act 2008 regulates how air time is divided and puts the administration of the public broadcasting system in the hands of the NPO Board of Directors.

In addition to the national broadcasters, there are also regional and local broadcasters in the Netherlands.

Unlike most other countries' public broadcasting organizations – which are either national corporations (such as the BBC and France Télévisions / Radio France), federations of regional public-law bodies (for example, ARD, SRG SSR) or governmental and member-based institutions with their own channels and facilities (such as PBS) – those in the Netherlands are member-based broadcasting associations that share common facilities. This arrangement has its origins in the system developed in the Netherlands early in the 20th century, known as pillarisation. Under this system the different religious and political streams of Dutch society (Catholics, Protestants, socialists, etc.) all have their own separate associations, newspapers, sports clubs, educational institutions, and also broadcasting organizations.

Their stated aim is to give a voice to each social group in multicultural Dutch society. The number of hours allocated to each broadcaster corresponds roughly to the number of members each organization can recruit (although this does not apply to NOS and NTR – see below). Since 2000, the system has been financed out of general taxation rather than from broadcast receiver licence fees. This is supplemented by a limited amount of on-air advertising (provided by STER), which has been allowed since 1967.

Nearly all viewers in the Netherlands receive most of their linear TV via cable, IPTV (DSL or fiber) or satellite systems. Regional public TV exists in parallel to the national system described below. Commercial television in the Netherlands began in 1989, with the Luxembourg-based RTL 4. In 1992, the government of the Netherlands legalised commercial TV, and many new commercial channels have become established since then.

Every year, the Dutch public broadcasting system is allocated funds from the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science. In 2018 the allocation was 794 million Euro with yearly revenues from advertising averaging around 200 million Euro. The cost to each adult Dutch citizen is approximately 45 Euro per year, which is on a similar level to VRT in Flemish Belgium (46 Euro). In comparison, the BBC in the United Kingdom gets its revenue from an annual household licence fee of 159 GBP, approx 188 Euro. As of 2020, the BBC's average annual licence fee income is 3.7 Billion GBP and the UK adult population is about 53 million (total population is 68 million), so the average cost per person is about 70 GBP.

Since the very beginning in the early 1920s, public broadcasting in the Netherlands has been split into different broadcasting associations with their members composed of listeners and viewers. These associations were based on the different ideological sections of Dutch society, called Verzuiling (pillarisation). Catholics, Protestants and Socialists were the first groups to create their own institutions, including schools, hospitals, trades unions and political parties. When radio in the Netherlands started in the 1920s the existing groups quickly created their own broadcasting associations, producing programmes for the primary radio channel, Hilversum 1. The first to start was the liberal AVRO, founded as radio broadcaster Hilversumsche Draadlooze Omroep (HDO) by the NSF transmitter factory in Huizen on 8 July 1923. The first regular radio broadcasts started on 21 July 1923. Airtime was rented to the various religious and political radio organisations—the Protestant NCRV, the Roman Catholic KRO, the Socialist VARA and the liberal Protestant VPRO.

Under the system of pillarisation in place at the time, each audience group was faithful to its pillar's broadcasting company. The programmes were funded by the associations' members. KRO and NCRV started their own station in 1927 with a transmitter also located in Huizen and built by the NSF.

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