Today, Friday August 20, the Dutch private broadcaster Het Gesprek will stop broadcasting. A last minute attempt to find new investors failed and the channel’s two entities, Het Gesprek TV BV and Het Gesprek Distributie BV, will go into liquidation.
Earlier this week it became apparent that the channel had entered rough waters and the end was near if no new investors could be found.
Originally envisaged as an “all-talk” channel, Het Gesprek later concentrated on ‘quality programming’, but still failed to attract enough advertising and sponsorship deals. The Dutch television market is one of the most competitive in Europe with very strong public broadcasters, who run 3 main national channels as well as 12 thematic digital channels and two powerful private broadcasting groups, RTL Nederland and SBS Broadcasting.
