Public broadcasters fear for their future due to budget cuts. As a result, they are opting more for their own productions

Joop van den Ende sounded the alarm last week. In a full-page advertisement in various newspapers, the TV producer warned against the power of American tech companies such as Meta, Amazon, and Elon Musk's X. According to him, Dutch politics is doing too little to protect the Dutch media sector. He mentioned the upcoming cuts of more than 160 million euros in public broadcasting and the proposed merger between commercial broadcaster RTL and newspaper publisher DPG. Van den Ende believes that these cuts must be taken off the table, and that merger must go ahead.

The advertisement reflects the great concerns of the sixty or so commercial production companies that make TV programs for the broadcasters – the so-called outside producers. They fear that they will end up paying the price in the upcoming round of cutbacks. The public broadcasters have to submit a list of programs that have to disappear by April 1. And production companies suspect that these will mainly be programs that the broadcasters do not make themselves. Irene van den Brekel of Human Factor TV: "The producers are under enormous pressure. The public broadcasters have to make drastic cutbacks and they have to hire many freelancers on a permanent basis, so the fear is that they will pass the cutbacks on to the outside producers."

Some are already noticing that broadcasters are more reluctant to order new programs: "For a month or two, everything has been on hold because no one knows what's going to happen," says Iris Lammertsma, owner of production company Witfilm ( Hokwerda's Kind, Dance or Die ) and chair of NAPA, an interest group for audiovisual producers. "Many outside producers have always had a hard time, but now the broadcasters are really taking on few to no new projects. This is on top of the broader trend that producers for more artistic documentaries and feature films can hardly turn to the broadcasters anymore. There is less and less room for art and more artistic projects."

The whole of Holland bakes

Who is the Mole , Heel Holland Bakt , Even tot hier : according to the interest group the Association of Dutch Content Producers (NCP), the most popular TV programs in Hilversum are made by external production companies. Since the rise of commercial channels in the late eighties, it has been common for broadcasters not to make many programs themselves, but to outsource this. Joop van den Ende was the first outside producer in the seventies. He is now present in the background at his daughter's company, Medialane ( Even tot hier , Eva ). John de Mol and Joop van den Ende are the best-known outside producers. Together, the two created the international production company Endemol, known for Big Brother , among other things.

“It would be unwise to pass the bill on to the producers, because they are an important creative pillar of the system,” says Nelsje Musch-Elzinga, director of the NCP. According to the NPO, the central board of the public broadcaster, no less than 40 percent of the public broadcaster's program budget is made by outside producers. They themselves estimate that to be even higher. Musch-Elzinga: “In 2023, outside producers received only a quarter of the NPO's total program budget, while they provided 60 to 80 percent market share. Eight out of the ten most watched programs were made by outside producers – apart from news, sports and events.”

The production companies believe that there is an uneven playing field between themselves and the broadcasters because they are in fact competing with their clients. After all, they also make programs themselves. "This makes the situation very complex for producers," says Musch-Elzinga. "And the uneven playing field is reinforced because the broadcasters fear for their future due to the cutbacks. As a result, they are increasingly opting for their own productions. I hear from all producers that the door of broadcasters is more often closed when it comes to new programs."

Small producers

According to Musch-Elzinga, all producers will be affected by the cutbacks to a greater or lesser extent, both small producers such as Human Factor ( Lubach, Plakshot ) and large players such as Endemol Shine ( All You Need is Love, Miljoenenjacht ). "It will be very difficult to run a healthy business in this way and in some cases perhaps even impossible," says Musch-Elzinga. "I don't know of any companies that are already in dire straits. But it wouldn't surprise me if, if the cutbacks are implemented, some producers will have a very hard time."

What contributes to the dire situation of small producers is that the NPO fund, with which the public broadcaster stimulates fiction, documentaries and talent development, has been set up differently, which means that roughly only half of the number of documentaries can be financed. “About twenty-four documentaries were financed by the fund per year, and now that number is only twelve,” says Lammertsma. “Because the production costs have increased due to inflation and other factors, while the total budget of the fund has remained the same. So they can simply finance fewer films with the same amount of money. And that has a major impact on the smaller documentary producers, who are dependent on the fund.”

Why don't broadcasters make their own programs? "Outside producers are more creative, efficient and flexible," says Musch-Elzinga of NCP. "This is the core of who and what they are." Vincent ter Voert of Vincent TV ( Chateau Meiland, Mr. Frank Visser, Vriendenloterij Miljonairs ) points out that outside producers often have a specialization that broadcasters do not have. In his case, that is reality: "Producers come up with ideas that broadcasters do not have. With reality, you have to invest a lot of time and attention in casting and maintaining talent. A broadcaster cannot always do this themselves."

Mandatory Dutch productions

Apart from these motives, broadcasters are also legally obliged to order at least a quarter of their programmes from production companies. In this way, the government wants to make better use of "the creative, diverse and innovative potential of this sector". Last year, a law was added that obliges streaming services such as Netflix to invest 5 percent of their turnover in Dutch products. This should give outside producers 45 million euros more turnover.

This is offset by a 2019 report by the General Audit Office . It states that programmes from outside producers are more expensive than what the broadcasters themselves make – something they themselves fiercely dispute. They prefer to keep to themselves what outside producers actually cost, as emerged from an article in Vrij Nederland from 2022. They do this partly because the broadcasters are also their competitors. Based on 40 percent of the NPO programme budget, 330 million euros per year would go to outside producers – from the public broadcaster alone. Arguments against this financial secrecy are that it concerns public money, the correct spending of which must be verifiable, and that star presenters, for example, can avoid checking their salaries by being paid via outside producers – the so-called U-turn construction.

With these legal arrangements to support the Dutch audiovisual sector, such as the mandatory 5 percent Dutch productions on Netflix, it should be noted that the large Dutch production companies are often in foreign hands after various mergers. Tim Vloothuis of Every Media ( Anne Frank Video Diary, Het verhaal van Floor ): "In such a competitive market, consolidation makes sense." For example, the French Banijay owns Endemol Shine and NL Film ( Penoza , Costa ). The British Fremantle has Blue Circle ( Heel Holland Bakt, B&B Vol Liefde ). In addition, you have the British ITV Studios (Oogappels ) and the American Warner Bros ITVP ( First Dates ).

Musch-Elzinga of the NCP regrets that the cuts threaten to create more friction between broadcasters and outside producers: "We have to do it together."