Radio 538

Radio 538 logo used from 2004 to 2012

538 logo used from 2012 to 2014

Dutch Radio 538 commercial outing, in 2006 at the Neude in Utrecht

Radio 538 Competition

Radio 538 is founded in 1992 and is the successor of Sky Hitradio, a sister station of Sky Radio that broadcast from July to 11 December 1992 and an initiative of a group of former Radio Veronica employees, led by Lex Harding. Transmissions began on 11 December 1992 from a villa in Bussum. The name Radio 538 is a reference to the wavelength (538m:558 kHz) on which Radio Veronica was broadcast in the seventies. Presenters of the first hour were Rick van Velthuysen, Wessel van Diepen, Erik de Zwart, Michael Pilarczyk, Will Luikinga and Corné Klijn.

The broadcasts of Radio 538 were initially made in Studio Concordia in Bussum, a building that is already in the fifties was used as a television studio and was used in the eighties and nineties by Veronica program Countdown. Late nineties Radio 538 moved from Bussum to Hilversum, where it moved into a studio complex close to the town hall. Since December 1, 2012 houses the entire 538 Group in the 4400 m2 large former NCRV building at Bergweg 70 in Hilversum.

Initially, from its start in 1992 until 1995, Radio 538 was available only via cable. A request to be allowed to broadcast over the air was rejected at that time. Following a media campaign during which 320,000 signatures were collected, Radio 538 got its over-the-air frequency in 1995 – or more precisely, a collection of several regional frequencies. In 2003, Radio 538 was granted a new nationwide frequency, 102 MHz (FM). 538 had to pay €57 million for the new frequencies.

In 1995 Lex Harding started TMF (The Music Factory), a TV station, and Erik de Zwart became the new chairman of 538. At the end of 2002 Erik de Zwart left to go to competitor Noordzee FM. Jan-Willem Brüggenwirth became the new chairman. In December 2003 Radio 538 was sold to Advent International, Lex Harding retaining 10% of the shares. In May 2005 Radio 538 was sold in its entirety to Talpa Holding, owned by Dutch media mogul John de Mol. In June 2007 De Mol sold the TV and radio assets of Talpa to RTL Nederland and became shareholder of RTL Nederland.

Radio 538 managed in 10 years to win a substantial market share. In April/May 2004 the station nudged years of market leader Sky Radio to the throne. Nowadays 538 still alternating with NPO Radio 2 and NPO 3FM the most listened radio station in the Netherlands. The marketing share is between 10 and 12 percent.[2] In 2002, 2004 and 2009 Radio 538 won the Marconi Award for best radio station.

In Flanders a Flemish version of Radio 538 launched on cable in February 1999, pending the airwave frequency allocation for national commercial radio, which in the late nineties was announced by the Flemish government in 2000. When in 2000 was no clear procedure for a given frequency, Radio 538 withdrew from Flanders.

In 2011 Talpa worked together with Finnish media conglomerate Sanoma to buy the Dutch activities of SBS Broadcasting from German broadcaster ProSiebenSat.1 Media. As part of that deal De Mol sold his shares in RTL Nederland to the RTL Group, retaining the ownership of Radio 538 and its sister station SLAM!FM. In 2014 Radio 538 started with some new programs. De Avondploeg, De Show Zonder Naam and Jurk!FM.

In 2018, the station announced that it'll stop carrying the flagship Dutch Top 40 chart. Prior to this, it has been discontinued on FM signal for quite some time.[3][4] The replacement will be named 538TOP50, and it is compiled based on the selection from 150,000 538Members, airplay on Spotify, YouTube and all the Dutch music stations, alongside Talpa's app JUKE. Dutch Top 40 is now on Qmusic.[4]

The station focused in the beginning mainly on youth with slogans like "The station of a young generation". With the advent of disc jockeys as Edwin Evers was the target group expanded and the station became wider. Stll weekly ran a new Alarmschijf and Dancesmash. The listener can also help decide which music is played in the program Maak 't or kraak 't and in past the Top 538. Jingles for the station is recorded by Wessel van Diepen, Rick Romijn and Kimberly van de Berkt.

Nowadays, the station makes commercial hitradio for young people in the broadest sense of the word. The format consists of Top 40 music, dance, Contemporary R&B and "throwbacks", supplemented with information and entertainment by DJs. The morning shows (4am-12pm) feature a mix of current and classic hits. The afternoon and nighttime shows focus more on current hits.

The first years Radio 538 aired only on the cable. In 1994 a request was also to be allowed to broadcast in the air are rejected in favor of a number of smaller stations (including Sky Radio receives no frequency). Radio 538 started this a media campaign. In a total of 320,000 signatures were collected. In 1995 Radio 538 received the coveted FM radio frequency (103.0 MHz, from Lelystad). On January 1, 1998 the station moved to another frequency package, consisting entirely different frequencies by region.

At the air distribution in 2003 (called Zerobase) Radio 538 received a new nationwide FM network. Radio 538 has since been received in large parts of the Netherlands over the air on the FM band via the following frequencies: 102.1/102.3 MHz North Holland, Groningen 102.2 MHz, 102.3 MHz North Brabant, Gelderland, Limburg, 102.4 MHz Zeeland and North Brabant, Friesland and Utrecht 102.5 MHz, 102.6 MHz Overijssel and Gelderland, 102.7 MHz South Holland and Drenthe. Radio 538 promotes its frequencies as "102 FM". Due to the lack of available FM frequencies in the south Limburg region, it was also rebroadcast on 891 kHz mediumwave from a transmitter in Hulsberg.

Radio 538 can also be received via Digitenne, on mobile phones via UMTS (on the portals of KPN i-mode and Vodafone Live) and in Limburg on AM 891 kHz, 336 m. Furthermore, the station can be received in the whole of Europe via satellite and worldwide via the Internet.

Radio 538 also transmits a TMC signal from traffic for route navigation.

From Tuesday, August 30, 2011 until November 23, 2011 Radio 538 was broadcast on 106.0 MHz from the tower of Ping FM in the Belgian Lanaken, for the region of Limburg-Maastricht from 12am at night until 7 pm. Ping FM was eventually ordered by the Vlaamse Regulator voor de Media (Flemish Regulator for the Media) to stop the retransmission of programs of Radio 538. In mid-September 2014 the programs of 538 can be heard via Ping FM. During the day on weekdays, on Thursday, till Sunday also few hours in the evening and on Saturday and Sunday mornings.

In August 2016, it was reported that Radio 538 would cease to broadcast via mediumwave 891 kHz within one month, as it is now well-received via cable, DAB+ and the internet in the south Limburg region.[5] From 26 October 2016 this transmitting is indeed ceased.

Every hour (at Evers Staat Op, Dane Doet 't and De Coen en Sander Show also on the half-hour), the news is broadcast, which is provided by the Algemeen Nederlands Persbureau (ANP). The regular newsreaders on Radio 538 are:

• Henk Blok (Evers Staat Op)
• Bart Jan Cune (Greatest Hits, Dane Doet 't and 538 Hitzone)
• Renee Postma (incidence Hannelore Zwitserlood)
• Jeroen Latijnhouwers (incidence Henk Blok)
• Hannelore Zwitserlood (De Coen en Sander Show)

At other times the news is read by newscasters associated with the ANP.

In 1999, Radio 538 started the hip-hop and contemporary R&B program Juize, which developed into the radio station Juize.FM on 18 July 2004. Since 1 July 2005, Juize FM is broadcast in most of the Netherlands by cable and has also started running shows with presenters.

Radio 538 was founded in 1992 by Lex Harding. In 1995 Lex Harding founded the TV channel TMF (The Music Factory). Both stations aired from the same building and worked together a lot. Erik de Zwart became the new director of Radio 538. In late 2002 Erik de Zwart moved to Talpa Radio International.

In December 2003, Radio 538 was sold to the investment fund Advent International. Lex Harding retained 10% of the shares.

On May 23, 2005 Radio 538 was fully acquired by Talpa by John de Mol and Lex Harding took definitely goodbye. Together with Radio 10 Gold, which already owned by Talpa, Radio 538 was brought under the management of Talpa Radio (since 2006: Talpa Media). Until that moment, Talpa, next to Radio 10 Gold, also owned Noordzee FM. Because it was not allowed under the provisions of the 2003 frequency to two general, possess national commercial radio broadcasters, Talpa was forced to sell Noordzee FM.[9] The Flemish company De Persgroep took Noordzee FM and renamed the station few months later to Q-music. De Persgroep does not have to pay anything for Noordzee FM to Talpa.[10][11]

On October 1, 2007 Radio 538, along with various programs from the television channel Tien was taken over by RTL Nederland. On January 1, 2012 Radio 538 was, like its sister stations Radio 10 Gold and Slam!FM, taken over again by Talpa Holding. This was a result of a transaction between RTL Group and Talpa Holding, which has been an exchange of shares and sale to the order. RTL Group owned back all shares in RTL Nederland Holding since January 1, 2015, while Talpa became again the 100% owner of Radio 538. All this is a result of participation by Talpa Holding in SBS Broadcasting.

TV 538 logo

TV 538 is a television channel which started in 2011 as a TV channel of Radio 538. In addition, the station has a number of digital channels that link to Radio 538, like 53L8, 538NL and 538IBIZA.

• List of radio stations in the Netherlands

Media related to Radio 538 at Wikimedia Commons

• Official website
• Radio 538 business website
• Radio 538 Fanclub