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The Dutch radio landscape has changed significantly over the past 30 years as many new distribution options were found on FM and DAB+. There are now 13 national FM networks — four used by public broadcasters and nine by commercial stations. The country also boasts a significant DAB+ network, allowing around 80 additional radio stations to be received nationwide; some are for simulcasting, but there are also many new stations. In addition, there are 13 regional public stations and numerous local and commercial regional stations broadcasting on FM and DAB+.
On June 15, 2022, the Telecom Agency, the country’s broadcasting supervisory and licensing authority, announced the results of an auction that made available another 14 local, low-power FM frequencies. The operation aimed to give small-scale commercial radio operators the space and the opportunity to launch successfully in the market. The term of these frequencies was initially set to last until Aug. 31 this year. Some of these frequencies have resulted in fully-fledged local commercial radio stations such as Radio Eemland 95.4FM from Amersfoort, Sunrise 104.2FM from Rotterdam and Koekstad Radio 94.4FM from Deventer.
Under the hammer
Commercial regional FM lots are facing a similar auction that will shake things up further. The regional lots will be almost halved, from over 50 to 27, but mostly have a greater reach. This concerns, for example, the current FM lot in the Randstad, a roughly arc-shaped urban area in the Netherlands, joining the country’s four biggest cities and which houses almost half the country’s population, served by several popular regional commercial radio stations.
In such auctions, the highest bidder wins. Officially, the government looks for “commercial viability.” In the new lots, the auctioned frequencies of the local commercial parties will be linked to the already existing regional networks, and some frequencies will not be reissued. The license holders of some local radio stations are not happy with this. They have invested in their organization and are trying to survive. The current license term of the local commercial stations is until Sept. 1, 2024. The term of the licenses of the regional commercial stations is until Sept. 1, 2025. This would mean that some radio stations will lose their license and not be able to broadcast on FM for a year, pending the outcome of the auction.
Several parties involved, including KRCO, a group representing smaller commercial radio stations, have indicated to the Ministry of Economic Affairs that an extension of one year would be highly desirable. After internal consultation at the Ministry, local commercial radio stations can continue broadcasting on their FM frequencies for longer. Officially, their licenses were supposed to expire on August 31, but the Ministry of Economic Affairs has extended them by six months.
Fuelling unrest
This state of affairs will fuel much unrest in the run-up to Sept. 1, 2025. The auction will probably shake up the existing radio landscape for regional and local parties. Interference from foreign parties cannot be ruled out. The matter is also important for some national parties because, in recent years, license holders have also allowed national stations to broadcast on their regional FM network through production agreements. This will likely be the last time that FM frequencies will be offered through an extension for exploitation.
DAB+ and online distribution will play an increasingly prominent role heading toward 2030. In recent years, the Netherlands government has actively promoted DAB+ and linked it to the FM license obtained in the licensing process. FM and DAB+ will also be partly linked when issuing these new frequencies. This means parties will broadcast on both FM and DAB+ for several years. The expected license to be issued will be longer.
The challenge for license bidders, in addition to securing commercial viability, is to offer sufficient relevant local content in their format. In recent years, the issue of local content has been a frequent topic of discussion, and for the upcoming auction, its prerequisite specifications have been formulated differently. Meeting these prerequisites will require the utmost effort from the media companies, whereby innovative solutions will undoubtedly be found and deployed. If this increase in scale in the market results in unrealistic business operations for the current local parties, they can always participate in one of the 57 local small-scale DAB+ networks yet to be allocated.
The author is a former broadcast and facilities manager at several public and commercial media companies and is now a freelance writer and media consultant in the Netherlands.
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