Flirting with Amsterdam: Reorganizing the Dutch Broadcasting Industry in Hilversum

Abstract

I will show in this article that there are two distinct audiovisual clusters in the Netherlands. One is situated in Amsterdam, the cultural capital of the Netherlands, and one in Hilversum, the broadcasting centre of the Netherlands, 20 km east of Amsterdam. I will propose that the organizational structure of the audiovisual industry cluster in Amsterdam, in contrast to the one in Hilversum, fits the description of other cultural industry clusters as found in the international literature. In addition, I will demonstrate that employment numbers in the broadcasting cluster in Hilversum—after a window of locational opportunity in the 1990s—are stagnating, while employment numbers in the broadcasting segment in Amsterdam are increasing. I will conclude that this tendency can be related to deregulation processes in the broadcasting industry in 1989. The paper is based on quantitative employment data.

Acknowledgements

This research was done under the supervision of Robert Kloosterman and Ewald Engelen at AISSR, Faculty of Social Science, University of Amsterdam. I would like to thank them and the anonymous reviewers for comments on draft versions. In addition, I would like to thank the O+S Department of Research and Statistics, Municipality of Amsterdam, for the provision of the data set.

Notes

1. Between 1995 and 2000, the increase of Amsterdam's regional gross value added (4.4% per annum) started to outpace the increase of the Dutch gross domestic product (about 3.9%) for the first time (EZ, 2012, p. 12). Since then, the annual regional increase of gross value added has been higher in the Amsterdam region than the annual increase of Gross Domestic Product (GDP): about 2.8% per annum between 1995 and 2011 in Amsterdam and about 2.2% in the Netherlands in that period. Value added at basic prices is calculated from the production value plus subsidies on products less the purchases of goods and services plus or minus the change in stocks of raw materials and consumables less other taxes on products which are linked to turnover but not deductible (see glossary OECD).

2. Primary employment data came from LISA, an acronym of “Landelijk Informatie Systeem Arbeidsorganisaties” (National Information System of Employment Organizations) and provides addresses at which paid labour, i.e. jobs, are registered. The roots of LISA lie in the National Employment Office (www.lisa.nl). Although valuable information about contemporary geographical trends is uncovered by employment datasets, they (in general) have their limitations as well. First of all, there are quite a lot of mistakes (Power, 2003, p. 169). Second, standardized classification categories that are used to distinguish between sectors provide interpretation problems and are never fully informative (Scott, 2000), also because “ … contemporary industrial classifications are founded upon historic industrial structures … ” (Pratt, 2004, p. 23).

3. Even before the economic crisis the rise of added value in the cultural industries has been lower than GDP (1.5% growth between 2006 and 2008 compared with 3.0% increase nationally). This is due to the fact that many cultural industries are labour intensive and because of the fact that there are only a few commercially successful winners, especially in high-art. To put it differently: the cultural industries generate more jobs than money. This certainly turns out to be the case after 2008, when the worldwide economic crisis hit the Dutch economy. As such, cultural industrial value added plummeted between 2008 and 2011 by 2.1%, while GDP grew by 0.5% in that period (O+S, 2013).

4. The story of the privatized facility supplier NOB is emblematic in that respect: Due to hostile take-overs, it acquired so many activities that it launched about five divisions in 2001: radio and television; real estate (studios); new media; foreign activities (in Germany, Belgium, Hungary and Poland) and partnerships. The partnerships were established with Ampco, Camcompany (one-camera rentals), Central Studios, Flashlight, ENG Videohouse in Belgium, NOB Deutschland GmbH, Cinevideogroep (a multicamera company specialized in sport recording and events), Heuvelman (lighting), BTP, Schiffer&Fraber GmbH, BFN, NOB Hungaria, Finance Television, MagDat and Gamepoint. After a period of financial reorganization and dismantling, its core activities (such as multi-camera services) were sold under the name Dutchview to its competitor, United Broadcast Facilities in 2005, its real estate was sold to Trammell Crow Nederland (TCN) Property Projects and its distribution activities were sold in 2007 to Technicolor (De Groot, 2007).