La seguridad alimentaria como objetivo de las políticas contra el hambre

The first Dutch radio program was broadcasted in 1919. However, only in 1988 the first commercial radio stations were introduced in the Netherlands. Until then public radio stations had a monopoly position in the radio broadcasting market. Although commercial radio stations were still not officially allowed, they used a foreign oper-ating licence to broadcast in the Netherlands. These stations broadcasted Dutch pro-gramming from international waters under the jurisdiction of a foreign state. Two well-known examples are Radio Veronica and Radio Noordzee International. The first Dutch commercial radio broadcasting license was granted in 1992 and during this year the number of commercial radio stations increased to nine.

In the nineties the number of commercial stations kept increasing which was mainly due to the increased availability of frequencies for radio broadcasting from temporary license auctions in 1994 and 1997. At the end of the nineties a few commercial radio stations had succeeded in obtaining a considerable market position and therefore the public radio stations saw their market shares decline. In 1997, the commercial station Sky Radio 101 FM overtook its public competitor Radio 3FM as market leader. The Herfindahl-Hirschmann index (HHI) for the national radio broadcasting market has decreased from 0.9 to 0.25 since the introduction of commercial radio stations. Al-though the degree of concentration has decreased substantially, the HHI still indicates that the radio broadcasting market is moderately to highly concentrated.³

3The HHI is calculated by∑(s²_j)where s_jis the listening share of radio station j. The HHI ranges from zero

The current assignment of frequencies for radio broadcasting are licensed by a

“beauty contest” held in 2003 and have been renewed in 2011 under the condition that a station would start introducing digital radio.^4,5 Each firm that wanted to par-ticipate in the “beauty contest” needed to submit a business plan and a financial bid.

A firm could score a “+” indicating above average or a “0” otherwise on its business plan. An allotment is assigned to a firm if it is the only firm with a “+” on the business plan. If more than one firm has an above average score the allotment is assigned to the firm with the highest financial bid.

The Dutch government assigned a large number of FM and AM licenses for com-mercial radio for a period of eight years. There were nine national allotments of which five have specific format requirements and four have unrestricted programming. The format requirements are (1) contemporary special music, (2) non-contemporary spe-cial music, (3) news/talk/information, (4) Dutch/European music, and (5) classical and/or jazz. Moreover, there were 26 regional allotments for commercial radio sta-tions.

Besides these commercial radio stations there are 5 national public stations and 13 regional public stations each covering one of the twelve provinces with one province having 2 regional public stations. The public radio stations did not have to participate in the beauty contest and obtained the allotment for free. However, they need to obey to stricter regulations with regard to coverage, advertising, and format requirements.

Table 2.1 shows that the joint national market share has been higher for commercial radio stations than for public radio stations from 2001 onwards. However, regional public radio stations still have the highest market shares in many provinces, especially in the north-eastern part of the Netherlands. Table 2.1 also shows that in 2004, the year after the beauty contest, the total listening time per day increased with 12 minutes compared to 2003. However, in 2005 the total time spent listening to radio decreased again and remained constant in 2006 which suggests that the increase in the number of stations in 2003 only had a temporary effect on listening time.

to one where values close to zero indicate a competitive market and values close to one indicate a monopoly.

4Binmore and Klemperer (2002) describe a beauty contest as a procurement mechanism in which a govern-ment committee awards the licenses to those candidates that best meet certain criteria.

5Radio stations had to pay a license fee for the renewal in 2011. The license fee was determined by SEO Economic Research (2010) and calculated as the economic value of the spectrum.

Table 2.1. National market shares of radio stations

2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 Commercial radio 47.1 48.5 48.0 49.6 50.4 49.8

National 44.8 45.6 45.6 47.0 47.6 47.3

Regional 2.3 2.9 2.4 2.6 2.8 2.5

Public radio 45.4 45.8 45.9 44.0 42.8 43.9

National 31.1 31.2 31.4 29.4 28.3 29.5

Regional 14.3 14.6 14.5 14.6 14.5 14.4

Other 7.5 5.7 6.1 6.4 6.8 6.3

Total listen time 189 188 187 199 192 192

Note: Other refers to radio stations for which ratings are not measured such as foreign or illegal radio stations which are also referred to as “pirate” stations.

Source: RAB/Intomart GfK (00-24 hour/population 10+).

On average, an individual listens 192 minutes to radio and Dutch radio stations reach nearly 70% of the Dutch population above the age of 10. Moreover, 95.5% of the Dutch households has at least one radio with an average of 2.4 radios per household.

Listening to radio can be characterized as a side-activity as 95% of the total listening time is spent while performing other activities.⁶ The main activities during listening to radio are working, household activities, and traveling by car.⁷Individuals listen to the radio mainly between 7AM and 8PM with a peak around mid-day.

Nowadays, the commercial pop radio station Radio 538 is the market leader, closely followed by the commercial station Sky Radio 101 FM and public stations Radio 1, Radio 2, and Radio 3FM. However, it should be noted that the joint market share of the public regional stations are higher than Radio 538’s market share. Moreover, there are substantial differences in market shares among different target groups defined by Intomart GfK who provides data on Dutch radio ratings. More detailed information about this will be presented in the next chapters.

6http://www.tijdsbesteding.nl/hoelanghoevaak/vrijetijd/media/geluiddragers/algemeen/

20061018.html.

7Carat (2006), Mediafeitenboekje Nederland 2006.