Culture minister to decide on future of far-right broadcaster ON

Culture minister Rianne Letschert is under pressure to pull the plug on far-right broadcaster Ongehoord Nederland (ON) when she meets director-general Peter Vlemmix later on Tuesday.

The channel has been repeatedly criticised for breaching journalistic and ethical standards, most recently in an item that used footage of a speech by Adolf Hitler to introduce a discussion about the “cosmopolitan elite”.

Letschert initially said she was unable to intervene because the public broadcasting service NPO had not asked her to withdraw ON’s licence.

But last week the media regulator CvdM said in a letter to the minister that the broadcaster had failed to comply with its legal obligations, clearing the way for Letschert to take ON off the air.

More than two-thirds of MPs want the publicly funded channel to be removed in the wake of the latest controversy, including all three coalition parties D66, CDA and VVD, RTL Nieuws reported. Parliament is due to debate its future later this month.

ON’s editor-in-chief Joost Niemöller stepped down a week ago because of a ”difference of view about the editorial direction and recent programming”, according to a statement by Vlemmix.

Niemöller was one of the panellists on the show that sparked the row, after he said he agreed with “certain things of Hitler’s” but condemned the Nazi leader’s anti-Semitism.

Vlemmix has said the broadcaster will continue its “fight for survival” and accused the media regulator of overlooking improvements made over the past year.