Cautiousness
In 1989, Willem made a move to the NOS, where he successively served as Radio Service Programming Director under Joop van der Reijden, Max de Jong and André van der Louw. This was a role with conflicting demands. On the one hand, he was being scrutinized closely by the critical broadcasting authorities that barely tolerated NOS programmers' activities. On the other hand, he had to coordinate a whole range of channels in an era in which up-and-coming commercial stations were gaining increasingly larger market share every month. Willem van Beusekom cautiously positioned himself as the person in charge of catering to these conflicting demands, 'Things don't move very fast in Hilversum, it always involves having to sit down to discuss things with lots of people. This can be particularly frustrating at times. You get this idea, "Hey guys, we have to do something – otherwise the commercial companies will be running the airwaves." On the other hand, I was in charge and was diplomatic enough to realize that it would take approval from at least five or six levels of management before anything could be achieved. You have to take the rough with the smooth in this business. The worst is that the outcome of all the anger, frustration and incomprehension is often not particularly satisfying.'
He embarked on a course that dealt with so-called channel differentiation, led discussions to tackle formatting and flattening the organizational structure, and carefully prepared the way toward consolidating news editorial services for the national news broadcasting service by regularly tabling this as an agenda item, 'Everyone acknowledges that a good broadcasting service can acquire a large listenership.
This requires the proper journalistic skills. Current-day Dutch practices hinder this process. Every news item is being prepared by eight different broadcasting companies, but nobody's tying up the loose ends, because no individual broadcasting company ever has enough airtime… On the work floor, where the journalistic heart beats strongest, they are ready and willing, but at the higher echelons, they're continually asking themselves whether this won't negatively impact our identity.' In the year that he left to move to the NPS, the first
Radio 1 Journaal broadcast formed a major turning point in Dutch public news broadcasting.
Liberal
In the mid 90s, a discussion arose about programming across the three national television networks and principally in which combinations the broadcasting companies would share airtime on these networks. The founding of the NPS – a breakaway from the larger NOS organization and with more than 450,000 subscribers – made it possible to programme
Nederland 3 as a culturally progressive broadcasting channel. The NPS' core tasks involved programming for
culture,
art,
minorities,
multi-cultural trends and
youth. The NPS also played an important role in the
informative sector as joint owner of NOVA. Willem van Beusekom was appointed as the first General Director.
'Someone once described me as being
liberal,
diplomatic and
persistent. I thought it to be a fairly good description,' he said on the eve of his appointment. It soon turned out that these qualities would be more than required to grant the fledgling broadcasting company any chance of survival. Initially, he had the political forces behind him, as intensive cooperation was something that had always encouraged. However, before long, government powers in The Hague began to value the profiling of certain individual broadcasting companies more highly, which made it decidedly more difficult for the NPS to establish itself. Under Willem van Beusekom, the NPS strived for years to promote the importance of the greater collective good, i.e. high-quality programming that aimed to attract a broader audience, 'It's possible to make cheerful programmes about minorities and culture. Multi-cultural society has its problems – we're not going to ignore these – but there're also a whole host of positive aspects too.'
The broadcasting world in Hilversum held its breath when the VARA announced that it would be investigating options to continue as a commercial broadcasting service outside the existing establishment. There was also a lot at stake for the NPS, having invested heavily for many years in the network, although the
diplomat Van Beusekom also viewed things from a different angle, 'If I were the head of the VARA, I'd have derived a lot of inspiration and élan from the past few weeks. There was much consternation within the broadcasting world, but I saw many people thinking, "Why didn't I come up with the idea to look beyond the existing system?"' The VARA eventually decided not to proceed with its plans, the NPS reached maturity and Nederland 3 once again looked capable of sustaining its future existence.
