[BLOG] I wrote here a week ago about the fine that Radio Veronica receivesfor violating the rules for the FM package on which they broadcast, now 8 dayslater Nu.NL finally comes with the confirmation: Radio Veronica must pay60,000 euros to the Agency Telecom, for violating the speech clause. And ifthey don ‘t improve it will be a monthly loss. They’re appealing. What has nowalso been confirmed is the spicy fact that another radio station (KINK) isbehind this, as I wrote twice before. In such a typical Dutch tattletale way,they patched up Radio Veronica. What do we think?
Well, let’s go back to the situation one more time. Somewhere in the earlynineties, the cable channel KINK FM (get it, kink in the cable, pretty funmade up) was created to play all kinds of alternative shizzle. It was theemergence of other cable channels such as Power FM, later Love Radio etc. so arock station could be added. Initiators included Rob Stenders and one JanHoogesteijn. Those two got into a rant about how to fill in the station; Robwanted to freak out, Jan brought in all kinds of consultants from America.That fight never got better.
We live 30 years later, Stenders is now the boss at Radio Veronica andHoogesteijn is still / again at Kink. One party, owned by John de Mol’s Talpa,has FM transmitters, the other wants them. So at Kink they do everything theycan to be received in cars older than 5 years. It turns out that it even goesso far that Kink has spent months listening to Veronica with a stopwatch inhand, to check whether they are complying with the speech clause rules. No, afour-year-old child can tell you that. Where Stenders is in charge, there ismuch and often talk. Strange for a station that has the slogan We.Love.Music
When I still worked at Veronica, Rob sometimes sent me an app with the text ‘Ionly hear you selling the station!’. In other words: some more dicks dude! Itis also almost impossible with the two-hour programming of now and all those3FM renegades that he has fished in that there is a nice chat about smalltalk. While that is not possible / allowed according to the frequencyconditions. They tried to solve it at Veronica in recent months by inventing a’news section’ for everything (Radio Veronica sports news, music news, concertnews, etc). which would not count towards the speech clause. Guessed wrong.All spoken word except the (official) news on the hour and half and thetraffic information counts. And that has been smelled and reported by Kink.Feels a bit like trying to sew a red card to another player on the field. It’snot sporty anyway. And what is Kink actually buying for this?
I think the most unpleasant element about this is that it came to my attentionthat the complaint that Kink has submitted to the AT has also been co-signedby Michiel Veenstra, deejay/program leader at Kink. I can still understand itfrom Hoogesteijn, he is director, but as a radio deejay you know what a burdenthat retarded clause is. I understand that you want frequencies for your ownradio station, but is this the way? Better just wait for that frequencydistribution next year, this will only cause more bad blood in the alreadyoverstrained Dutch radio market. Still, you know they smell blood at Kink now.They are already sitting with the Hit file on their laps to check whetherVeronica does not also violate the music clause and therefore broadcasts toomuch music of 5 years and younger that has reached the Top 40. Can they giveRob Stenders and his 41 deejays another ear.
If we dive into the history books, it is indeed of all times that quarrelsbetween radio stations: Fifty years ago, a bomb exploded on board the ship ofRadio North Sea, for which people at Radio Veronica had ordered and evensentenced to prison. So it can always get worse.
Patrick Kicken
Fred Siebelink, the conjoined Siamese twin brother of Rob Stenders, alsospeaks disgracefully about it on his Facebook: