Commercial radio stations in the Netherlands have been given an unexpected extension of their licences, which were due for renewal in September of 2011.
Deputy Economic Affairs Minister Frank Heemskerk wrote to the Lower House that commercial FM broadcasters like Sky Radio, Radio 538 and BNR Nieuwsradio can remain on air after 2011, on condition that they start parallel broadcasts using digital technology. The stations have been given an extra six years after 2011.
on Jun 23rd, 2009 at 18:58
Local public stations in the Netherlands have been trying to get better frequencies for years, and they are told there are none. Public national station 3FM is a carbon copy of any commercial station, that could have been used to target minorities like public station Fun x does. And now suddenly there seem to be extra frequencies for this Fun x. Incomprehensible.
on Jun 23rd, 2009 at 19:37
If the dutch government offers dab+ licences, it have to be free to all kinds of broadcasters tp apply to such a licences in the dab+band. Not on air stations i Holland.only.
Each station wich are on air on AM/FM must leave their licence back to reauction to local AM/FM stations when they get their dab´licence.
on Jun 24th, 2009 at 11:27
Dear hwh
It is the same old story about terrestrial frequencies.
A lying government.
- There are no frequencies for commercial radio -
This false information started in the 60-ties during the pirates era.
And when in the 90-ies a few channels were found by Amsterdam lawyers
- There are no extra frequencies for commercial radio-
A Zero Base operation, long time boycotted by the Government, proved otherwise.
And now with the introduction of digital radio
-Digital radio sounds better then analogue-
We all know that it is the other way round.
The whole radio broadcasting policy is sort of quasi innovative and aimed at pleasing the new electorate, the young people and more specific the minorities, that is why 3 FM and FunX are promoted.
(Minister Frank Heemskerk is a member of the PvdA (Labour), nick named Party for the Allochtonen-Minorities)
The reality is that the average age in this country is going up, and there is a lack of decent radio for older people, the 50 +. Still not here a good 60/70 station, the kind of music the Baby Boomers grew up while listening to Veronica, RNI.
No News/Talk stations, no proper Jazz stations, No Easy Listening/Music of your life-tme etc.
TDAB never came off the ground in no country, with a little exception of the UK, but even there it is no success. The Governemt is flogging a dead horse.
TDAB radio wil provide you with the sam content as FM, and a few extra stations no body wil notice or care for.
(Actually, if you realy wish to introduce TDAB, kick all so called young stations with CHR etc from the FM band, make them TDAB only. Young people will much faster accept new technoligies. Leave the FM and AM for the older generation, they will die out with FM/AM)
The industry knows that the future of digital radio is in on-line Internet radio.
on Jun 25th, 2009 at 10:47
Online internet radio is NOT the future of radio at all, it has limited audience figures, it doesn’t bring in massive amounts of money and thirdly not everybody cares for internet only listening nor wants it-that you will never change.
on Jun 25th, 2009 at 11:38
Anthony, I know you are not a ‘fan’ of Internet Radio, but you are putting forward a somewhat blinkered argument.
Internet Radio may NOT be the ONLY future radio has - however it has become an extremely successful medium in its own right. The figures touted by commercial radio operators, which I assume you are clinging to, do not reveal the full extent of the listening that takes place in developed countries.
The fact that nobody has a viable business model that can exploit this popularity is not the fault of the medium but of the operators.
DAB and the rest are ways for radio owners to protect the existing ‘walled garden’ and nothing more.
The success or otherwise of DAB et al will depend on enough listeners buying a set and listening to the stations that can be received on it. Simple as that. So far, they haven’t seemed too keen, despite what the research may be made to say.
Google trends for DAB will give an illuminating insight, try it.
on Jun 25th, 2009 at 12:15
The difference between yourself and everyone else, Anthony, is that you are trying to promote your favourite system ( to be effective, you need a major international advertising campaign, rather than a comment on a blog ) whereas others are discussing what they believe the future holds. Ruud is right, of course.
20 years ago, no-one could have foreseen the amazing advancement in mobile phone and internet technology that was to come ( 20 years ago, the internet didn’t exist ) .
This advancement in technology is accelerating. Mobile phone transmitters, bluetooth, internet, TV, radio via desktop, laptop and mobile phones are all converging as the days and the months roll on. They may merge into a comprehensive electronic device that does everything for only a small cost, so that in only a few years time, we may laugh at the idea of a set that picks up nothing more than a handful of radio stations.
It is also worth considering that the general public are not likely to favour one system over another. They are more likely to consider what they are getting for their money and in recent years the public have shown themselves to be ready for innovation and change in the world of technology. The fact is that internet radio will be able, in the not too distant future, to do everything that all other systems combined can do. Common sense tells us that the public is, therefore, likely to prefer this option.
on Jun 25th, 2009 at 12:26
So satellite radio/cable tv delivered radio and digital terrestrial television delivered radio will ultimately die will it in place of internet radio? Don’t think so!
on Jun 25th, 2009 at 16:47
One of the problems I have with todays distribution systems that there are to many of them.
Radio is also transmitted via DVB-T, but only a limited number of stations can be carried.
There seem to be several radio over mobile phone systems, and we have internet that can operate wireless with also several systems WiFi, GSM, UMTS.
And on top of that T-DAB.
My feeling is that the spectrum use of al these systems might be bigger then analogue FM only!! So what on earth is the gain of going digital. Sound quality is not better.
The free-coming spectrum from television on VHF raised exactly 1 Euro for the Dutch government, since there was only one party to bid. Another L-band operator and single bidder also paid just 1 Euro.
For the public, and certainly the older part, it is all very confusing.
It is about time an international system is adapted, supported by the whole world.
Who will take the lead in this?
on Jun 25th, 2009 at 16:55
Ruud, what you say makes a lot of sense - but it will never happen. Commercial interests will see to that. Think of all the problems when we first had color television - there was PAL, NTSC, SECAM and various variants thereof. The only chance would be that if all the world’s major electronics companies agreed to share the development costs and profits - but can you really see that happening? Even in Europe there are disageements over which systems to adopt. Sometimes there are political reasons too - if a country doesn’t want its people to receive programmes from across the border, the simplest way is to adopt an incompatible system.
on Jun 25th, 2009 at 23:19
Let all nationall and regional broadcasting be on dab+ and release all AM/FM/DRM to new licenceholders of 100% local radio and communityradio.Oooohhh, that was to easy.and simple. it\’s 1/15 only, of the potential radiospectrum by using dab+ in tv-channel 12 VHF.We got 14 times more to radio.
on Jun 26th, 2009 at 11:19
OK, but do we really want to go down the quantity vs quality route? It seems to me that what’s wrong isn’t that we have too few stations, but many of them are rubbish. I agree than there are people out there who deserve licences, but equally there are a lot more currently on the air, especially in the UK, that ought to have their licences taken away.
There’s also the question of sustainability. If there are too many stations in one area, there’s not enough advertising to go around. Volunteer community stations are a good idea, but maybe a maximum of two in any one area. Otherwise, there won’t be enough decent presenters to go round either. User-generated content is fine on the Internet - but look at YouTube. Millions of videos, 90% of which are total rubbish, with shaky cameras and distorted audio. I wouldn’t want to turn on my radio and hear low quality output like that. Would you?
on Jun 26th, 2009 at 12:56
Hi Andy, I am afraid you are so very right that a single digital radio system is quite remote.
In the meantime all those different systems cause a lot of confusion and extra costs.
Just talk to older Belgian TV experts and even in the B/W era Belgian was a real mess, no less then 4 systems in one country. One station even operated 2 systems, RTBF, flipping from 819 to 625 lines occasionally. The Belgian people needed to buy very exepensive sets in order to pick up all stations from their own country and neighbouring France and Netherlands.
However there are also positive examples as with the audio cassette and CD, the latter became a world wide success thanks to joint forces by Sony and Philips.
Indeed maybe the retail industry will make the decision on digital radio.
I prefer that over Governments promoting and even forcing things in a possible wrong direction.
on Jun 26th, 2009 at 13:57
There’s a lot of doomsaying here and a lack of imagination. We live in the Technological Age and that is the reason for the variety of systems. However, things will get sorted out in the end and there will come a day when there is one ultimate system and then everyone the world over will go for it.
This has already happened on a smaller scale with VHS winning the war between VHS, Betamax and Philips 2000. For the most part, CDs won the war between gramophone records, cassettes, DAT, and reel to reel tapes.
So what appears to be happening as the age progresses is that a number of systems are invented of which many founder and one may survive and then we move on to the next phase and the same thing happens again and so on until we reach the end, by which time many electronic devices are likely to have converged.
Computers and the internet would appear to be the key to that convergence, with a capacity to combine more forms of technological innovations than any other invention so far. One device can be used as telephone, encyclopedia, TV, radio electronic mail etc. etc. etc. That is just one reason why I believe it may be the future of TV and radio and telephones, and why I also wonder if there will be such a thing as a radio-only device in the future.
As for the politicians, they may think they are clever in choosing a system. However, in the end it is science itself which will make the ultimate decision.
on Jun 26th, 2009 at 14:17
There are, and will always be many many different digital radio systems because huge multinational consumerelectronics giants will see to that and the longer that goes on within the manufacturers,there will never be a one ended single universal digital radio solution and answer. TV pictures on mobiles are at best poor and will never take off that well(and don\’t even go to HDTV on mobiles because that won\’t work either), internet radio isn\’t for everybody and everything(not all broadcasters will go internet only and abandon traditional listeners who have always enjoyed, and do enjoy, what they are/have been and always will be used to)and broadcasters will NOT give up what people have been used to and are have always used to without a fight preferring the usual methods of AM/FM/DSat/Dcab/DTT/DAB/DAB+ and possibly looking at(and going onto) digital piggyback systems like IBOC/Digital Radio Mondiale on AM bands MW/LW and SW and Digital Radio Mondiale Plus on 87-108Mhz FM bands/FMXtra etc etc etc. As long as the manufacturers have the will and the way to compete with each other and broadcasters experiment with different digital radio transmission/reception systems, a single digital radio transmission/reception standard just will simply just not happen.
on Jun 27th, 2009 at 09:26
I agree with Ruud’s comments about a lack of decent radio for the over 50s. At least in Holland you have Radio 5 Nostalgia. Here in the UK the over 50s are totally ignored. There isn’t a station for the over 50s, just a few programmes tucked away at inconvienient times on Radio 2.