Dutch public broadcasters rebranded: NPO replaces Nederland

The three Dutch public broadcasters’ television channels Nederland 1, Nederland 2 and Nederland 3 will be relaunched on August 19 as NPO 1, 2 and 3, the Volkskrant reports on Monday.

The six public broadcasters’ radio stations will also get NPO in front of their current names, including pop music station 3FM. NPO stands for Nederlandse Publieke Omroep or Dutch public broadcaster.

The aim of the rebranding is to make the channels ‘more recognisable’ and ‘easier to find’ in ‘the new digital world,’ Shula Rjjxman of the NPO umbrella organisation told the paper in an interview.

Cuts

The cost of designing the 13 new logos is put at €100,000.

‘It is understandable that there is resistance to this operation in times of spending cuts but we are convinced it has to happen,’ Rijxman told the paper. ‘We cannot accept the risk that our services get lost in the enormous amount of different media on offer.’

Last year it emerged the public broadcasters umbrella NPO paid the Dutch homing pigeon organisation (Nederlandse Postduivenhouders Organisatie) €100,000 for its website address npo.nl.

There are currently 13 public broadcasting companies who divide up airtime according to how many members they have. However, their number is being merged into eight in 2016 and then again to six.

Public broadcasting is funded by a combination of government money and advertising, but state funding is being slashed by €200m a year from 2015.

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