Radio versus television: How broadcasters slowed down the introduction of television in the Netherlands

This article examines preparations for the introduction of television in the Netherlands in the late 1930s. The introduction process displays many of the characteristics of the introduction of innovation elsewhere and in other sectors. But it was also heavily determined by the typical "pillarization" of Dutch society and of the Dutch political and broadcasting systems. Pillarization gave cultural autonomy to the main groups of society, divided largely along religious and political lines. The Dutch radio broadcasting organizations feared that TV might eventually replace radio and were determined to gain control of the new medium. To protect their interests, they wanted television to be organized as radio, in accordance with the idea of pillarization. This qualitative analysis of a variety of source materials shows that, despite outward appearances, the broadcasting organizations feared the coming of television because the costs involved in TV would force them into unacceptable forms of cross-pillar programmatic cooperation or might lead to a takeover of television by the industry or the state. They worked successfully behind the scenes to decelerate and control the process of introduction of the new medium, preventing an experiment with TV in 1938. The war then intervened. Television finally appeared in the Netherlands in 1951.