Are the Programmes Really Doing It? Television in the Low Countries

In order to attract viewers, one of the seven Dutch public-service broadcasting organisations uses the phrase ‘It's theprogrammes that do it'. However encouraging this may sound, it is rarely true in reality. In the Low Countries today, television itself has become news. Television is no longer about the programmes, but about the struggle for survival of numerous competing broadcasting organisations, public as well as commercial. So that any sketch of the situation, such as this article, can be no more than a snapshot.