Television

In 2016, 92.6 percent of the Dutch population of 6 years and older watched at least one minute of television. In 2015 this was 93.2 percent (SKO 2016 Report). In 2015 and 2016 the time spent on traditional TV dropped for the first time in ten years. In 2014 it was 200 minutes per day, in 2015 190 minutes and in 2016 183 minutes. This number included ‘delayed’ watching which has been going up since it was measured for the the first time in 2008 form 2 minutes to currently 13 minutes (SKO Yearly Reports). The data does not include watching services like Netflix (2.2 million subscribers in the Netherlands) or YouTube. Apart from Netflix there are two smaller services active in the Netherlands: Videoland (RTL) with 200,000 subscribers and NLZiet (public and commercial broadcaster) with 100,000 subscribers.

The traditional national market in the Netherlands is dominated by three groups, public broadcasting NPO (1, 2 and 3), RTL (4, 5, 7, 8, Z) and SBS (SBS6, Net5, Veronica, SBS9). Together these dozen channels have been responsible for more than 80 percent of the market share in the last 25 years.

The most popular programs in 2016 were soccer games - even when the Netherlands did not participate in the European Championship -, reality programs, the Eurovision Song Contest, Kings Day and game shows. When sport is excluded, the top ten of 2016 also included one daily 8 o’clock news show.

People increasingly watch TV on laptops, smartphones, iPads or computers. In 2005, 8 percent of the population said they did that, in 2014 44 percent answered yes to this question. Laptops and tablets were mentioned by a quarter of the respondents (SKO, 2015, TV in Nederland).