Veronica (1995–2001) The channel began as
Veronica on , and was a joint venture between
RTL 4,
RTL 5 and
Veronica Association (in Dutch: Vereniging Veronica), and with the radio station
HitRadio Veronica in the Holland Media Groep. The Veronica Organisation had been a
public broadcasting association since 1 January 1976 but left the
Dutch public broadcasting system in 1995 and started a commercial channel. In the first year, it broadcasts a lot of American TV series, such as
Beverly Hills, 90210,
Melrose Place and
Baywatch, films, Dutch programmes ranging from
game shows to
talk shows and Dutch TV series, such as
Flodder and
Onderweg naar Morgen. By the end of its first year,
Veronica dropped the news-related programmes and established its place in the Dutch television market as a young adult channel with programmes of a provocative nature. In the next years,
Veronica proved to be a pioneer in television making by introducing a wide range of
reality shows with a real breakthrough when it launched the
reality game show Big Brother in 1999. In 2000
Veronica announced it would leave the joint venture and wanted to start a channel of its own. Eventually, Veronica Association closed a deal with
SBS in 2003. RTL had to withdraw the Veronica name from the channel by 1 September 2001.
Yorin (2001–2005) RTL had to change the name of the station. At first, RTL came up with
ME for both radio and television, with a campaign saying
ME komt er aan (ME is coming), but a fashion label in the Netherlands (
WE) complained about the similarity with its name. Moreover, the retailer had also claimed the usage of the names
ME,
SHE,
HE and
YOU for WE's sub-brands in the Benelux region. Had RTL not abandoned the
ME brand, the media company wound be sent to court. Finally, after forbidding the usage of the name
ME in March 2001, RTL rebranded
Veronica to
Yorin on 2 April 2001, announced to the public on 29 March. RTL didn't want to add
RTL into the name (instead of calling it RTL6 or RTL1) so the channel would keep its own identity. Some of the programmes that were popular on Veronica continued on Yorin, even though these were initially planned to air on ME. In the auctioning off of
FM radio frequencies called ZeroBase, Holland Media Group acquired a lot allowing them to broadcast a popular music station virtually nationwide; this station was called
Yorin FM with its most notable DJs being
Rob Stenders,
Robert Jensen and
Henk Westbroek. In 2006, due to disappointing results, Holland Media Group sold the station to SBS Broadcasting, who rebranded it
Caz! and changed the programming to a fully
RTL 7 (since 2005) When Dutch media tycoon and Big Brother-inventor
John de Mol announced the launch of a TV channel named
Talpa, and contracted many popular Dutch TV hosts, the
RTL Group felt the need to reorganize its channels. Apart from a physical renewal, the setup of its channels
RTL 4,
RTL 5 and
Yorin were changed. The group announced the rename of Yorin in May 2005 but had to depend on market strategies. Initially the names
RTL 6 and
RTL+ were suggested, in order to create a family of channels. To emphasize the three channels' connection, the name Yorin was replaced by
RTL 7 on 12 August 2005. The name was selected in late June as part of the results of a survey that suggested that most viewers had Yorin on channel 7 and that the average Dutch viewer who started on channel 1 (Nederland 1) stopped on one of RTL's secondary channels (5 or 7). Practically all former
Yorin shows were moved to
RTL 5, whereas that RTL 5's programmes continued on
RTL 7.
RTL Z also moved from
RTL 5 to
RTL 7. The origin of the number 7, instead of a more logical 6, goes back to 1995 when the original channel
Veronica was founded. Around the same time, the commercial channels
SBS6 and
TMF appeared and also claimed channel 6 on the remote control.
Veronica and
TMF lost the battle for remote control button 6. Also,
SBS6 was originally managed by
Fons van Westerloo, who later became head of
RTL Nederland before the rebranding operation. On 15 October 2009,
RTL Nederland started simulcasting their
RTL 7 and
RTL 8 channels in
1080i high-definition. With the conversion of RTL Z into a channel in its own right on 7 September 2015, RTL 7 started clearing the daytime schedule with repeats of programmes previously seen on the RTL channels. ==Programming==