Veronica is a brand name of successive Dutch commercial and public radio and television broadcasters. It began its life as anoffshore radio station,Radio Veronica, on 17 May 1960. The name comes from its first name VRON –Vrije Radio Omroep Nederland (Dutch for 'Free Radio Broadcasting Netherlands'). "Free" was a reference to the laws at the time that did not allow commercial radio broadcasters to operate from a location within the (land) territory of the Netherlands.
Though Veronica's appeal and power have waned, most of the Dutch commercial radio and television landscape has been formed by Veronica and its spin-offs.
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The Association resulted from apirate radio station,Radio Veronica, which broadcast from a ship oninternational waters off thecoast of the Netherlands between 1959 and 1974. The wave appearing in thelogo hearkens back to that time. The nameVeronica is a derivation of the abbreviation VRON (Vrije Radio Omroep Nederland / Free Radio Broadcasting Netherlands).[1]
After the pirate-activities became legally impossible (31 August 1974), Veronica transformed itself into the Veronica Broadcasting Organization (Veronica Omroep Organisatie, short VOO), enabling it to gain a legal radio and television license within thePublic broadcasting system. It finally was given a license on 28 December 1975. The first television broadcast of Veronica was on 21 April 1976. Within a decade it became one of the largest public broadcasters and the trademark was tested as being more popular thanCoca-Cola.[2]
In 1990, it was revealed that Veronica used dfl 7-10 million to illegally financeRTL 4, which was initially named RTL Veronique. Veronica lost its appeal case in 1993 and had the risk of being suspended for seven weeks from the public system due to improper management.[3]
In 1995 theVeronica Association gave up public broadcasting and entered a joint-venture withCLT, parent company ofRTL 4 andRTL 5,VNU andEndemol, called theHolland Media Groep, running three mostly successful national TV-stations and three less successful national radio stations.
BNN became a public broadcasting association as a part of the Netherlands Public Broadcasting system and replaced Veronica on 15 August 1997, after Veronica gave up public broadcasting and entered a joint-venture withCLT. BNN first stood for the Brutaal News Network (Flagrant News Network). The name was later changed to Bart's Neverending Network after founderBart de Graaff's death at age 35 from kidney failure caused by a rejection of a kidney transplant he received in 1999. Conflicts let to the dissolution of this co-operation in Spring of 2001.RTL rebrandedVeronica intoYorin which would finally be rebranded intoRTL 7.[4][5]
In 2002–2003, the Veronica Association learned that it could not realise radio and TV in a stand-alone setting. In 2001SBS Broadcasting B.V., then the Dutch branch of theSBS Broadcasting Group, already bought the Dutch TV channelFox 8 from theNews Corporation[6] and renamed it intoV8 in anticipation ofVeronica. However, the negotiations between the Veronica Association and SBS Broadcasting were not going as planned and no agreement could be set. In the course of 2002Veronica cooperated withMTV Networks Benelux and started time-sharing with MTV'sKindernet. The ratings were poor though. At the end of 2002 the Association is even talking with HMG again. Eventually Veronica Association closed a deal with SBS, andV8 was rebranded as Veronica on 20 September 2003.[7][8]
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