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Type | International public broadcaster |
---|---|
Country | |
Availability | International |
Launch date | 15 April 1947 |
Dissolved | 31 December 2012 |
Official website | Radio Netherlands Archives |
Replaced | PCJ/PHI (Philips Radio) |
Replaced by | RNW Media |
Radio Netherlands (RNW; Dutch : Radio Nederland Wereldomroep) was a public radio and television network based in Hilversum, producing and transmitting programmes for international audiences outside the Netherlands from 1947 to 2012.
Its services in Dutch ended on 10 May 2012. English and Indonesian language services ceased on 29 June 2012 due to steep budget cuts imposed by the Dutch government and a concomitant change in focus. [1] The last programme broadcast on shortwave was a daily half-hour show in Spanish for Cuba named El Toque (The Touch) on 1 August 2014. [2] It was replaced by RNW Media, a Dutch governmental organisation for free speech and social change around the world. [3]
Following a series of experiments on various wavelengths in 1925, reports of good reception from a low-power shortwave transmitter were received from Jakarta on 11 March 1927.[ citation needed ] Dutch Queen Wilhelmina made what is believed to be the world's first royal broadcast on 1 June 1927, addressing compatriots in the East and West Indies.
Regular international broadcast transmissions started shortly afterwards from the Philips shortwave transmitter in Eindhoven. [4] They used the call sign PHOHI for broadcasts in the Dutch language to the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia), and PCJJ for broadcasts in English and other languages to the rest of the world.
The Philips company in Eindhoven saw a market for its radios in the Dutch colonies. Its research laboratories received support from companies that were trading goods between The Netherlands and Batavia (now Indonesia). The PHOHI was officially founded on 18 June 1927. In 1928, test transmissions commenced from a site in Huizen, North Holland. It was chosen because of the high water table on the land near the Zuiderzee lake (now Gooimeer). This meant there was a good conductivity for an efficient earth, which led to stronger signals in the target areas.
Around 1929, the Philips call sign was simplified to PCJ.
There were several prewar technical innovations:
The Research Laboratories continued with the development [5] of new transmitters that could operate at shorter wavelengths and could be re-tuned for broadcasts to different parts of the world. By the end of 1936, the power had been raised by connecting a stage with two water-cooled type TA 20/250 valves. This provided a power output of 60 kW at a frequency of 15220 kHz and immediately became the strongest short-wave transmitter in Europe. In 1937, this transmitter was moved from Eindhoven to the PHOHI Transmitter Park in Huizen.
Broadcasts from the Netherlands were interrupted by the German invasion in May 1940. [4] There were three transmitters in operation at that time. On the afternoon of May 14, the Dutch military commander gave orders that the transmitters should be destroyed, to prevent them falling into the hands of the Nazis. After several attempts, which included calling in the help of the Hilversum fire brigade, two of the three transmitters were completely destroyed. The third was only partially damaged and was later repaired and used by the Germans for pro-Nazi broadcasts, some originating from Germany. There were also relays of music concerts from Dutch broadcasters operating under German control.
The Dutch government in exile was granted air-time on BBC transmitters in 1941. [4] The programme Radio Oranje was a daily commentary [7] on the Dutch situation both in the Netherlands and the rest of the empire (Dutch East and West Indies). [4] One of the chief commentators on Radio Oranje, Henk van den Broek, was given the task of restarting public broadcasting once the country was liberated.
On 3 October 1944, van den Broek travelled from London to a liberated Eindhoven and began broadcasts as Radio Herrijzend Nederland. [4]
On 24 May 1945, a programme for Dutch people living abroad was transmitted with the help of the BBC. [4] In July 1945, the Dutch government founded the Stichting Radio Nederland in den Overgangstijd (Radio Netherlands in Time of Transition) and gave it the mandate for both domestic and international broadcasts. [4]
Later, under pressure from the pre-war Dutch broadcasting companies, the government decided to separate national and international broadcasting. [4] On 15 April 1947, the Stichting Radio Nederland Wereldomroep (Radio Netherlands International Foundation) was established. [4] Broadcasts in Dutch, Indonesian, English and Spanish began in that year. [4] Subsequently, language services in Arabic and Afrikaans (1949), French (1969) and Brazilian Portuguese (1974) were added. [4]
Radio Netherlands was editorially independent and received 6% of the Dutch annual public allocation for public broadcasting.
The interval signal of Radio Netherlands was a version of the Eighty Years' War song Merck toch hoe sterck played on a carillon. The original recording [8] was made at the cathedral in Den Bosch. It was replaced in August 1987 by a recording of the carillon [9] in Breda.
The English-language shortwave broadcasts to North America were discontinued on 26 October 2008, due to a survey that claimed that more listeners listened to RNW podcasts than listened on shortwave radio.
On 24 June 2011, the Dutch government announced a 70% cut to RNW's budget reducing it from 46 million euros to 14 million.
On 11 May 2012 at 20:00 GMT (22:00 CEST), the Dutch service signed off at the end of a 24-hour radio marathon broadcast. This included several interviews with past staff members of the station, including the former Director General Lodewijk Bouwens. [10] On 29 June 2012, Radio Netherlands ended broadcasting in English at 20:57 GMT (22:57 CEST) after a similar celebratory 24-hour broadcast. [11] The final show was posted online by Jonathan Marks, the former Radio Netherlands Programme Director (1992–2003) and host of Media Network. [12]
Since 2013, RNW's funding had been under the responsibility of the Dutch Foreign Ministry rather than the Education and Culture Ministry. [13]
The shortwave international broadcasts were heard worldwide via broadcast facilities in Bonaire (opened in 1969) and Madagascar (opened in 1972). [4] The last transmission from the shortwave relay station in Bonaire ended at 1:57 GMT on June 30, 2012, [14] and the installations were dismantled later that year.
In 2013, the government of Madagascar and Malagasy Global Business S.A. signed an agreement to operate the Madagascar relay station in Talata-Volonondry. Among its customers are NHK Radio Japan, BBC World Service, Deutsche Welle, Vatican Radio, Adventist World Radio and Free Press Unlimited.
Radio Netherlands Worldwide used a shortwave station in Flevoland from 1985 to 2007. [4] The shortwave transmissions were supplemented by an extensive network of partner stations.
Language | Date of launch | Date of closure |
---|---|---|
Afrikaans | 1949 | ? |
Arabic | 1949 | 2012 |
Brazilian Portuguese | 1974 | 1994 |
Dutch | 15 April 1947 | 11 May 2012 |
English | 15 April 1947 | 29 June 2012 |
French | 1969 | ? |
Indonesian | 15 April 1947 | 29 June 2012 |
Spanish | 15 April 1947 | 1 August 2014 |
The English-language output included news and current affairs, as well as documentaries and programmes about the Netherlands, Europe, culture, music, the media and international affairs. The station developed a reputation for providing unique, objective and high-quality public radio, garnering dozens of international awards for its productions. When the station closed down, the extensive English-language multi-media archives were deleted, but a group of former employees has made over a thousand of documentaries and radio programmes available again. [15]
DX Juke Box was a media show that ran from 1961 with Harry van Gelder (1911–2003) and Jim Vastenhoud through to 7 May 1981, when the name and format was changed to Media Network . Jonathan Marks took over in August 1980 and re-launched the show less than one year later by adding news/topical features. He produced over 1000 editions of the programme. It became a full-time website/weblog in October 2000. The blog was discontinued in 2012 as a result of budget cuts. The Media Network archive containing around 300 of the broadcasts is available online. [16]
Happy Station Show was another long-running popular radio show, originating on the network's predecessors in 1928 and continued until 1995.
From 1976 until his death in 1998, Pete Myers was a prominent presenter and producer in the English section, including as a presenter of Happy Station for two years.
International broadcasting, in a limited extent, began during World War I, when German and British stations broadcast press communiqués using Morse code. With the severing of Germany's undersea cables, the wireless telegraph station in Nauen was the country's sole means of long-distance communication.
Bonaire is a Dutch island in the Leeward Antilles in the Caribbean Sea. Its capital is the port of Kralendijk, on the west (leeward) coast of the island. Aruba, Bonaire and Curaçao form the ABC islands, 80 km off the coast of Venezuela. Unlike much of the Caribbean region, the ABC islands lie outside Hurricane Alley. The islands have an arid climate that attracts visitors seeking warm, sunny weather all year round. Bonaire is a popular snorkeling and scuba diving destination because of its multiple shore diving sites and easy access to the island's fringing reefs.
RNW Media is an international non-governmental organisation based in Hilversum, the Netherlands. RNW Media focuses on engaging young people and supporting them to create positive change in their societies. Using digital media platforms – websites, WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram – RNW Media builds digital communities of young people in restrictive settings. Thematic areas are: Social Cohesion and Inclusive Governance (SCIG); Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR); Media Capacity Building.
The Dutch public broadcasting system is a group of organizations that are responsible for public service television and radio broadcasting in the Netherlands. It is composed of the Nederlandse Publieke Omroep (NPO) foundation, which acts as its governing body, and a number of public broadcasters. The Dutch Media Act 2008 regulates how air time is divided and puts the administration of the public broadcasting system in the hands of the NPO Board of Directors.
Shortwave listening, or SWLing, is the hobby of listening to shortwave radio broadcasts located on frequencies between 1700 kHz and 30 MHz. Listeners range from casual users seeking international news and entertainment programming, to hobbyists immersed in the technical aspects of radio reception and collecting official confirmations that document their reception of distant broadcasts (DXing). In some developing countries, shortwave listening enables remote communities to obtain regional programming traditionally provided by local medium wave AM broadcasters. In 2002, the number of households that were capable of shortwave listening was estimated to be in the hundreds of millions.
Shortwave broadcasting in the United States allows private ownership of commercial and non-commercial shortwave stations that are not relays of existing AM/MW or FM radio stations, as are common in Africa, Europe, Asia, Oceania except Australia and Latin America. In addition to private broadcasters, the United States also has government broadcasters and relay stations for international public broadcasters. Most privately owned shortwave stations have been religious broadcasters, either wholly owned and programmed by Roman Catholic and evangelical Protestant charities or offering brokered programming consisting primarily of religious broadcasters. To better reach other continents of the world, several stations are located in far-flung US territories. Shortwave stations in the USA are not permitted to operate exclusively for a domestic audience; they are subject to antenna and power requirements to reach an international audience.
The Orfordness transmitting station was a major radio broadcasting facility at Orford Ness on the Suffolk coast in the United Kingdom able to broadcast to much of Europe. It closed in May 2012 after more than 30 years of service. In 2017 Radio Caroline started broadcasting from the site, though not with the same intended coverage of an audience in Europe as the original station.
Radio Veronica was an offshore radio station that began broadcasting in 1960, and broadcast offshore for over fourteen years. It was set up by independent radio, TV and household electrical retailers in the Netherlands to stimulate the sales of radio receivers by providing an alternative to the Netherlands state-licensed stations in Hilversum.
Radio jamming is the deliberate jamming, blocking or interference with wireless communications. In some cases, jammers work by the transmission of radio signals that disrupt communications by decreasing the signal-to-noise ratio.
HCJB, "The Voice of the Andes", was the first radio station with daily programming in Ecuador and the first Christian missionary radio station in the world. The station was founded in 1931 by Clarence W. Jones, Reuben Larson, and D. Stuart Clark. HCJB now focuses on Ecuador with unified programming on FM at 89.3 MHz in Pichincha, at 92.5 MHz in Manabí, at 96.1 MHz in Tungurahua and Cotopaxi, at 98.3 MHz in Esmeraldas and with separate programming on AM at 690 kHz. Broadcasts in Spanish and indigenous languages on 6.05 MHz (1 kW), continue on an intermittent basis with a new solid state transmitter which in 2017 replaced an older (5 kW) transmitter. These broadcasts were not listed on the HCJB English website as of February 2016.
ABC Radio Australia, also known as Radio Australia, is the international broadcasting and online service operated by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), Australia's public broadcaster. Most programming is in English, with some in Tok Pisin.
WRMI is a shortwave radio station broadcasting from Okeechobee, Florida, United States. WRMI is a commercial radio station that sells airtime to businesses and organizations.
BVN, is a Dutch free-to-air television channel providing Dutch public television to viewers around the world. It is a service of the public broadcasting company of the Netherlands, Nederlandse Publieke Omroep (NPO).
The Happy Station Show was one of the world's longest-running international radio programmes, having originated in 1928 on shortwave radio and airing its final edition on 27 December 2020.
Nauen Transmitter Station in Nauen, Havelland district, Brandenburg, Germany, is the oldest continuously operating radio transmitting installation in the world. Germany's first high power radio transmitter, it was founded on 1 April 1906 by Telefunken corporation and operated as a longwave radiotelegraphy station through World War II, and during World War I became Germany's main link with the outside world when its submarine communications cables were cut. Upgraded with shortwave transmitters in the 1920s it was Germany's most advanced long range radio station, continually upgraded with the latest equipment and serving as an experimental station for Telefunken to test new technology. At the end of World War II, invading Russian troops dismantled and removed the transmitting equipment. During the Cold War it served as the GDR's international shortwave station Radio Berlin International (RBI), and was the East Bloc's second most powerful radio station, disseminating Communist propaganda to other countries. Since German Reunification in 1991 it has been operated by Deutsche Telekom, Germany's state telecommunication service. The original 1920 transmitter building designed by architect Herman Muthesius is still used; it is the only remaining building designed by that architect.
The Huizen transmitter was one of the first large-scale radio transmitting stations to be built in the Netherlands.
Media Network is the name of a weekly radio programme broadcast on Radio Netherlands Worldwide from 7 May 1981 until 26 October 2000. When the programme began the station was known as Radio Nederland, but was renamed Radio Netherlands shortly thereafter. The programme concentrated on communications topics with particular reference to international shortwave broadcasting, but also went on to cover mediumwave and longwave, television, satellite, internet, reviews of shortwave receivers and other electronic devices. It was produced and presented by Jonathan Marks. In the course of 1994, he was joined by colleague Diana Janssen, who was working as a media researcher at the station, co-hosted the show until shortly before its end. Media Network ran for over 1000 editions.
NIROM was the privately funded territorial broadcaster of the Dutch East Indies. It was one of the precursors of Radio Republik Indonesia.
PCJJ was a pioneering shortwave radio station in the Netherlands operated by Philips Radio on behalf of Philips Laboratories, a division of Philips Electronics. It was the first shortwave radio station in Europe, and the first dedicated shortwave radio station in the world - previous stations had simulcast AM/medium wave broadcasts.
The Wertachtal transmitter site in Bavaria, Germany, was from 1972 to 2013 the biggest shortwave broadcasting facility in Europe. It was located in the valley of the Wertach River near the village of Amberg (Swabia), and was originally operated by Deutsche Bundespost, and later by Media Broadcast GmbH. Before the site was closed, it included 14 500 kW radio transmitters and two 100 kW radio transmitters. It was built in 1969 and demolished in 2014.