A broad mainstream public broadcaster that ends up carrying a surprising amount of Dutch middlebrow culture
Part of: Dutch Culture, Publieke Omroep
AVROTROS is one of the biggest broadcasters inside the Dutch public broadcasting system.
It was created in 2014 from a merger of the older broadcasters AVRO and TROS. The result is a broad, general-audience public broadcaster: not especially ideological, not especially niche, and very comfortable with accessible mainstream programming. Source: AVROTROS
AVROTROS is the sort of broadcaster that tells you what Dutch "middle" culture looks like when it is not being ironic about itself.
It sits behind programmes and events that are big, shared, and legible:
That mix matters. It is not only entertainment and not only serious journalism. It is very Dutch public broadcasting in that older, generalist sense: one organisation trying to be broad enough to matter to millions of people at once.
If BNNVARA often feels sharper and more left-leaning, and VPRO often feels more intellectual, AVROTROS feels more like the safe middle of the room. That is why it is so visible in things like Eurovision.
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