The story of podcasts in the Netherlands started around 2005 with a radiodeejay. The then 17-year-old Domien Verschuuren was one of the first in theNetherlands to podcast on a regular basis. His show was called cooling cast, he made fifty episodes of it. The technique for offering audio in this way –an audio program that you can play at a time of your choosing and to which youcan subscribe – was developed in America in the early nineties. The new mediumwas soon embraced in the Netherlands by radio makers, who experimented with itlong before money could be made from it.
Now dozens of radio makers are working on podcasts. What does the new mediumhave to offer them?
In the early years it was like playing a radio pirate. Chris Bajema, now oneof the most successful podcasters in the Netherlands, still vividly remembersit. „At that time I made for the VPRO program The evenings a weekly columnthat The Pod Guide was called. In it I showed what kind of podcasts weremade, that was actually almost exclusively American. A lot of it was aboutbarbecuing.” Podcasts were, especially compared to radio, still veryexperimental. “I remember a man who recorded sounds in New York and put themonline.”
I was happy that I finally got rid of the pinching formats>> Chris Bajema
Bajema decides to switch to podcasts in 2015. “I organized a crowdfundingcampaign and then my own show started, Man with the microphone. In thebeginning, it was very profitable for me financially. The kind of podcasts Imake are very labour-intensive, but I was happy to finally get rid of theconstricting formats that dictated how long something should take or whatexactly my research assignment was. For me, that fact outweighed the amount ofwork I had to do.”
That also applies to another podcaster from the very beginning, Botte Jellema.He also worked at The evenings of the VPRO Radio, but at the time theprogram was broadcast on Radio 6, the first public channel to broadcast onlyvia the internet. “No dog listened to that, you didn’t have apps andsmartphones and fast wireless internet connections. We thought that offering_The evenings_ if podcast might save our program.” He has no figures, butJellema remembers that the number of listeners “increased enormously” afterthey started calling the radio program a podcast.
Messing around without format compulsion
Stopped at the end of 2015 The evenings and Jellema decided to start her ownpodcast together with friend and artist Ype Driessen, The Century of theAmateur. He also remembers the freedom of making audio without formatpressure. “We just messed around a bit. And recorded with the cheapestpossible recorder. If it didn’t work, at least it wouldn’t have cost anything.What we did was explore what was possible in audio, without taking intoaccount the length of what we were making. I remember in the third episode Isaid that 400 people had listened. We are now, we are at episode 250, at50,000 listeners per episode.” With the listeners came the revenue models.“Initially, it was financially unsuccessful,” Jellema recalls.
Both Bajema and Jellema are now affiliated with Dag en Nacht Media, a podcastpublisher that was founded in 2016 by Tim de Gier and Anne Janssens. The twoknew each other from the editors of magazine Free Netherlands. Janssens: „Wewere both very interested in the new medium of podcast. He wanted morelisteners for his cycling podcast, The Red Lantern. And I wanted more Dutchpodcasts, so we decided to set up our own publishing house. We wanted tocreate a network that would allow creators to monetize their podcasts. In theend we succeeded, with trial and error. Every new podcast we add to ourportfolio brings its own group of listeners. We then encourage those listenersto listen to other podcasts as well.”
The corona pandemic gave the burgeoning podcast economy the final push. “Wedidn’t know what hit us. All ad revenues were lost. But then we saw that thelistening figures skyrocketed and the advertisers all came back again. Thegreater financial scope gave us the opportunity to start financing podcastsdifferently. At first we did that through the back door, we looked foradvertisements in podcasts. Now we can pay podcast makers in advance to workout plans and do research,” says Janssens.
In this way the medium matures slowly. Nevertheless, it will alwaysemphatically continue to seek cooperation with the public and commercial radiobroadcasters, since podcast and radio are, after all, closely related.
The new reading About this series
What trends are behind the podcast’s rise?
- Why radio makers are switching to podcasts 2. How far do podcasters go in sharing their children’s lives? 3. Is there room in the market for a Dutch player in addition to Apple and Spotify? 4. Is it possible to make podcasts for the deaf?
“I think it is a task of the public broadcasters to finance, as they call itin jargon, ‘narrative’ and therefore more expensive podcast series on socialthemes,” says Emmie Kollau. With her production company Aldus’ Productions shemakes multimedia productions, including podcasts. As an example of anarrative, social podcast, she mentions their own series about ex-prisoners_Outside the Walls_. “But despite the increasing popularity of podcasts, verylittle money has still been reserved for this genre from the NPO and thebroadcasters.” For a new production, _The Ranchi Babies; a colonial legacy_did we manage to work together with the NTR? The podcast is about the 37babies who were born in 1950 on the steamship Ranchi, which hurriedly leftIndonesia, which had just become independent, loaded with Dutchmen and KNILsoldiers.
Through such collaborations, radio and podcast can reinforce each other.Maartje Duin is someone who has extensive experience with this. She made theimpressive series in 2020 Plantation of our ancestors , in which sheinvestigates traces of the slavery past in her family. According to Duin,radio is ideally suited for broadcasting podcasts: “Many people do not yethave the podcast in their system properly. Radio is a very good addition toput them on the track of great programs, especially now that there is such aproliferation of podcasts. I’m glad the VPRO is broadcasting mine, sometimesin full, sometimes just one episode. After all, radio is a medium throughwhich you can suddenly be surprised. Sometimes I think it’s a shame thatpeople leave the radio.”
Podcasts are the rescue of radio
One of them is Pieter van der Wielen, who until recently hosted the interviewprogram four times a week Never sleep again presented, between twelve andone in the morning on Radio 1. He recently switched to NRC where he has aninterview podcast every Friday The hour presents. “I actually didn’t know ifmaking podcasts was for me. Until a baker once told me that while he wasthrowing the loaves of bread in the oven early in the morning, he was watchingthe podcast of Never sleep again listened. Because the program was live, butit was also offered as a podcast. So then I thought, what’s the differenceanyway? A long interview is a long interview.”
Podcasts are in a sense the salvation of radio, says Van der Wielen. “Podcastsare a gathering place for all the beautiful forms of radio that are in dangerof disappearing. It is the domain of all those good makers who are gettingless and less attention on the radio. A market has emerged in which all ofthis can be experienced again.” The flexible moment of broadcasting does notsuit him as a maker too bad. “When NRC first polled me I wasn’t ready atall. But when I was increasingly attacked by bouts of fatigue, I thought:maybe working during the day is not so bad after all. So that I now belong tothe podcast world has a big advantage for me. I can finally sleep again.”
Radio makers in podcast land
Chris Bajema (1971) he worked for many years as a documentary maker,reporter and radio play maker for the KRO, NTR and VPRO. Characteristic of hiswork is the fascination for the boundary between fiction and non-fiction. Hehas been making podcasts since 2015.
Blunt Jellema (1981) is a journalist, documentary maker and presenter, andmakes radio and podcasts. He has worked for various programs on NPO Radio 1and NPO Radio 4 and for Day & Night Media since 2006, and has had his ownpodcast series since 2015.
Emmie Kollau (1977) is a radio, podcast and documentary maker. Inaddition, Emmie is also a creative producer. She worked for years as an editorand editor-in-chief for various broadcasters behind the scenes, until she tookup the microphone and camera herself.
Maartje Dune (1975) is a radio and podcast maker. In her work she dealswith social themes such as our colonial past, dementia and loneliness, andseeks experimentation in the form.
Pieter Van der Wielen (1974) is a presenter and journalist. He presentedradio programs like How so! , Labyrinth , With a view to tomorrow and_Never sleep again_. He recently made the switch to NRC Podcasts.