The minority government of Liberal VVD and Christian Democrats agreed details on Friday for a shake-up of the public broadcasting system and a budget cut of €200m by 2015, reports NRC.

The main point is the merger of broadcasting companies to bring the total down from 21 to 8 by 2016, NRC reports sources in The Hague and Hilversum as saying.
The government wants broadcasters to work more closely on their core business of making tv and radio programmes, to buy in more programmes and to make more and longer episodes of their own productions. This should safeguard the quality of programmes, a condition for the VVD, says the paper.
World Service
Other points in the green paper include cuts in the number of public broadcasting websites and the freeing up to outside publishers of programme information, currently an important source of income for broadcasting companies.
The World Service will have to limit itself to broadcasting ‘free speech’ to countries without this freedom and will see its budget cut. It will also be hived off to the foreign ministry. No further details are given by NRC.
The green paper is being sent to parliament for discussion on Friday afternoon.