Supplying and viewing diversity - The role of competition and viewer choice in Dutch broadcasting

From the late 1980s, the television market in the Netherlands developed in a single decade from a public monopoly to one of the most competitive markets in Europe. As a result, diversity of television supply declined while the absolute number of programmes that viewers could choose from considerably increased. Viewers make use of this increase in viewing opportunities to actively select a diverse combination of programmes from a less diverse supply. Consequently, the Dutch audience views as much diversity in the late 1990s as in the late 1980s.