Two would-be public broadcasting companies backed by the Telegraaf newspaper group have been given the green light to join the public radio and tv system by media minister Ronald Plasterk.

Powned, set up by shock blog GeenStijl and WNL, both say they want to shake up the ‘left-wing bias’ in the current broadcasting set-up. They will start broadcasting in September 2010 on a five-year licence. Both stations will have an average of two hours tv and nine hours radio time a week.
Plasterk said Powned would be a good addition to the broadcasting system because it is ‘anti-authoritarian and tests the boundaries’.
As expected, Plasterk also announced that green broadcaster Llink has lost its licence because its programming is not different enough from other companies.
The Netherlands has three public tv and five radio stations as well as digital channels. Airtime is allocated according to the number of members which the individual companies manage to sign up.