Netherlands

[NL] Report of the Dutch Council for Culture on the future of the Dutch public broadcasting

IRIS 2014-6:1/28

Anne Goubitz

Institute for Information Law (IViR), University of Amsterdam

On 27 March 2014, the Dutch Raad voor Cultuur (Council for Culture) made recommendations in a report entitled ‘De Tijd Staat Open’ to the Secretary of State, Sander Dekker. The report poses eight recommendations for ensuring a modern and future-proof public broadcasting system.

As a result of economic cut-backs in the public broadcasting sector as well as technological changes in the consumption of media, the State Secretary asked the Council to advise on a number of issues: the distinctive character of the public media system; the stimulation of innovation and creative competition; cultural and philosophical programmes; the position of new media and mobile services; the position of the Dutch Public Broadcaster (NPO); and the possibility of providing new forms of programmes.

The Council of Culture formulated three new criteria of the Publieke mediaopdracht (Public media instruction), in addition to the current criteria in Article 2.1 (2) of the Mediawet (Dutch Media law), i.e. independence, pluriformity, reliability, and cultural diversity in order to evaluate and advise on the questions posed. The new criteria are: innovative character; cooperation with third parties; and public participation.

The Council advises the public broadcasters’ associations to come into extensive contact with their audiences, experts in the field of broadcasting and programme makers through consultations, in order to target the whole spectrum of society. On the basis of a ‘contract with society’, priorities can be formulated to create traditional programmes as well as programmes online. The Council recommends that public broadcasting associations should focus more on specific groups of audiences and themes, such as culture.

The system should be more open to new broadcasting organisations to enter if they can demonstrate their ability and willingness to target specific audiences. It also recommends the introduction of a new central organ: Editors in Chief at the NPO. This organ will be responsible for ensuring the plurality of the programmes. As well as recommending cooperation with external parties at national level, the Council also proposes collaboration at regional level between the private and public sector. Regional newspapers and broadcasting actors can strengthen their forces by creating content for local broadcasters, newspapers and other journalism initiatives.

In order to comply with the new criteria, legal and organisational amendments to the Mediawet (Dutch Media law) will be required.