Opinion: ‘DPG’s acquisition of RTL is a good idea’

This opinion piece appeared in NRC on Monday, January 27. Read the original here.

Concentration of ownership in the journalism sector is not ideal, writes Nienke Venema. But DPG’s acquisition of RTL may actually help safeguard the diversity of our media landscape.

Never before has our information landscape been so shamelessly exploited for the commercial interests of the most powerful. The three richest people on Earth are using their platforms—which reach some 5.5 billion people worldwide—to influence elections and curry favor with the new occupant of the White House.

At the same time, in the Netherlands, the Netherlands Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM) must rule on a purely domestic issue: Should the Netherlands’ largest newspaper publisher, DPG Media, be allowed to grow even larger? Won’t the company become too dominant if it also acquires RTL Nederland? This is a legitimate point of debate, as it concerns the protection of our news supply. But the ACM’s ruling should not ignore today’s media landscape, in which major tech companies play a leading role.

Rich Diversity of Opinions

Over the past twenty-five years, our information landscape has changed beyond recognition. Information has never been as accessible as it is today. Thousands of providers compete for our attention, and aggressive algorithms drive the popularity of “fun” videos and strong opinions. Anyone can share their ideas or join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, or X; our media landscape has never been so diverse.

But does that also apply to access to factual and independently produced information? That is an important question for our democracy. To participate in democratic decision-making, citizens must be able to rely on reliable reporting—preferably from multiple sources offering different perspectives.

The Netherlands (still) has such a media landscape. We have NOS.nl, but also the privately funded NU.nl and RTL.nl. There’s the NOS Journaal, but also the freely accessible RTL Nieuws. The National Media Survey shows that the Dutch enjoy using these sources: 12 million Dutch people consult four different online news sources each month to stay informed about what’s happening in the world.

This rich diversity deserves protection so that citizens can continue to access news with a variety of perspectives and viewpoints. This means that, at a minimum, some general news content on radio, television, and online must be available to everyone free of charge.

For the NPO and the NOS, this goes without saying. But for private media outlets to offer accessible, free news, they must be able to generate sufficient advertising revenue from their journalistic content. That has become more difficult now that media publishers have found themselves caught between Alphabet Inc. (Google’s parent company) and Meta (which owns Instagram and Facebook, among others).

With their monopoly, international tech companies control not only public discourse but also the advertising market; nearly 80 percent of all digital advertising revenue goes to them, according to the Media Monitor 2024 published by the Media Authority.

Protection Needed

As a result, media companies’ revenue models are under severe pressure. A telling example is the state of the news industry in the United States, where more than 3,200 newspapers have closed their doors since 2005. Only through substantial investments, economies of scale, and their own competitive advertising ecosystem can local players offer any semblance of a counterbalance to the major tech companies. The reality is that without economies of scale, even some Dutch newspaper titles would no longer have been able to survive on their own.

For these reasons, we support DPG’s acquisition of RTL, provided that it is accompanied by strong safeguards for journalistic independence, both now and in the future. Media ownership concentration is not an ideal situation. But what would be the alternative?

Imagine that RTL Nederland falls into the hands of a foreign streaming service that takes over the profitable Videoland but lets RTL Nieuws die a quiet death. In that case, there would indeed be less market concentration in the Netherlands, but also less diverse, accessible, and reliable news for people on a tight budget. Who would then be left to take over RTL’s journalistic mission?

We must not forget that Dutch newsrooms are already uniquely protected against unauthorized interference by owners and advertisers through the so-called editorial charter. The charter guarantees that editors-in-chief cannot be forced to cooperate or make compromises regarding content. This explains why the Netherlands—unlike neighboring countries—has no media owners who attempt to exert political influence through their publications. We must keep it that way, and that requires protecting our journalistic media landscape. We do not want to follow in the footsteps of the United States.