State Secretary Van der Laan
Wants Public Broadcasting to Return to Their Roots

The Hague - Anyone from abroad, for example, Dutch expatriates from Canada, who are also not familiar with the public broadcasting system in the Netherlands, might say after watching one day of Dutch television that he or she cannot tell the difference between the so-called commercial television stations and the so-called public broadcasting channels.

They might see a difference in the sense that on public broadcasting there is advertising before and after the programme, but never during the programme, while commercial broadcasting will interrupt programmes for advertising. If this is the difference, they say, it is one of style not content. Hence, the distinction often made in Hilversum between public broadcasting and commercial television may be received with a degree of cynicism.

Clarification may be deepened for the unfamiliar by State Secretary Medy van der Laan for Media Affairs at the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science. The Democrats66 State Secretary will defend proposed legislation before the Cabinet which will require the public broadcasting networks to sign so-called performance contracts with the Ministry. The proposals were drawn up in consultation with Mr. Harm Bruins Slot, the chairman of the Netherlands Network Foundation (NOS).

Depending upon the outcome of the proposed legislation in the Tweede Kamer (Lower House), the public broadcasting networks will have to demonstrate they are meeting provisions of the Network Act with respect to minimum amounts of broadcasting time for certain kinds of programmes.
Today, say many critics, the various kinds of programmes such as education, art and information or news, are actually entertainment programmes. The maximum broadcasting time for entertainment under the Network Act is 25% of all programmes offered under NOS.

Mrs. Medy van der Laan, therefore, will attempt to enforce more strictly the amount of time the public broadcasting networks are devoting to the various kinds of programmes ranging from cultural and public affairs to women and migrants, rather than entertainment. An example is serious Dutch drama. At the moment, the networks are using 1% of total broadcasting time for plays. Mrs. Van der Laan believes more attention should be paid to drama.

The public broadcasting networks are founded on grounds of identification with religious organizations, life styles and with political parties or movements. Each of the networks is required, given subsidies from the Government are taxpayers money, to devote most of their attention in the various kinds of programmes to those programmes interesting for their own members. Entertainment and amusement, for a general audience, says Van der Laan, can be done better by the commercial stations.

Under austerity measures adopted by the Cabinet, cuts in funds for the networks will come to Euro 40 m in 2004 and up to a maximum of Euro 64 m in 2007. Of this amount, Mrs. Van der Laan is sticking to cuts of Euro 4.5 m next year for the Dutch World Service, while three network orchestras, the Radio Philharmonic Orchestra, the Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Metropole Orchestra, must save Euro 5.5 m to Euro 7.5 m.

The State Secretary says she hopes the Ministry of Foreign Affairs can provide funds for Dutch World Service broadcasts to such countries as Cuba where press freedom is a rare commodity.

During an organized debate on 11 November in Amsterdam by the political party Democrats66 between Amsterdam's cultural alderwoman Mrs. Hannah Belliot of the Labour Party, Mrs. Van der Laan and 16 personalities from the art community in Amsterdam, Belliot made a plea on behalf of additional funding for the Stedelijk Museum to which Mrs. van der Laan says, "That is a very big wish". 13 November 2003