The Third Channel

On 4 April 1988, the Dutch public broadcasting service launched its third television network. This third public channel marks a turning point in the history of public broadcasting in the Netherlands, while at the same time serving as a strategic move to counter the effects of increasing commercialisation. Furthermore, the third channel was the embodiment of the cultural and even artistic policy goals of the media policy (Pots 2000: 409). In the preceding years, the Scientific Council for Government Policy (WRR 1982: 10) had proposed that one of the objectives of Dutch policy on the media should be the protection of the country's cultural achievements and their dissemination through the increasing possibilities of radio and television. From this moment, government policy was to be determined by a media policy based on democracy, pluralism and freedom of expression, together with a cultural policy focused on the preservation and promotion of cultural values. A third television channel could cater to these cultural, artistic expressions that were not sufficiently covered on the two existing channels, which were programmed by independent, non-profit broadcasting associations.

The third public television channel was programmed with a mix of news and information, sports, education and culture. Over the years, the cultural aspirations of the network were toned down as the public broadcaster was attempting to compete with the advent of commercial broadcasting in the 1990s. The cultural objectives of media policy continued to be the subject of debate from the 1990s onward but remained resilient in the drastically changing media landscape in the Netherlands.

This chapter will assess recent media policies and the changes therein by applying insights from policy regime theory, against the background of societal and technological changes. It will explore both this political process, the coalitions that have been forged, and the implicit value system that underlies it.

We consider policy decisions as the outcome of a process characterised by the formulation of different views and interests, expressed by actors or stakeholders that adhere to a certain logic and that engage in debate (Van den Bulck 2012). We will discuss the development of media policy in the Netherlands in relation to the changing nature of cultural policies, the wider public service media debate and debates about the legitimacy of public media policy in general.