In order to accommodate its schedule to Ster's commercial breaks, Nederland 1 had its opening time advanced by fifteen minutes (from 7pm to 6:45pm) because the insertion of two commercial breaks between 7 and 8pm would make the airing of a 50-minute series in the timeslot inefficient. The new structure meant that the five-minute children's programme would air at 6:45pm, followed by the news bulletin at 6:50pm (expanding in length from one minute to five) and then the commercial break at 6:55pm. Ster would start with three allocations on the channel: 6:55-7pm, 7:56-8pm and 8:15-8:20pm. Advertising on Saturday afternoons was limited because it was considered undesirable to open the schedule with a commercial break, let alone associate it with the youth. The solution was moving the weekly newsmagazine, which also had subtitles for the deaf, from Tuesday nights to Saturday afternoons. For this, a solution was drafted: a one-minute NTS news summary would air at 3:30pm, then the first break would be from 3:31 to 3:34pm, then the newsmagazine, and then a second break from 3:57 and 4pm. Nederland 2 also had its allocations, three-minute commercial breaks before the first and second news bulletin of the evening. The government agreed that there would be no commercial breaks on Sundays and public holidays. The first commercial break broadcast on Dutch television (excluding
TV Noordzee) was on 2 January 1967 at 7pm. The first commercial was for CEBUCO, the newspaper advertising association, who was concerned about the arrival of television advertising being a death sentence to advertising on newspapers, beginning with the phrase "Seven seconds ago, the first advertisement started on television. You heard of it from your newspaper". Other commercials on the first break included Syntraciet coal ovoids, Kwatta chocolates, Jumbo board games and Zenith watches. Between commercials, in its first five years on air, an
optical consisting of a wave effect was shown. Ster started using
Loeki de Leeuw shorts for its commercial breaks in 1972. In May 1990, the government announced the passing of a law to enable television commercials - and consequently - Ster's activities, to be allowed on Sundays. The law was approved in April 1991. Ster's advertising growth in 1993 projected a 50% slide due to the impact of a commercial recession, witnessing no growth in the first half of the year. On 8 November 2001, STER introduced a new logo. The existing four-blocked diamond-cube logo was confined to history after 36 years of legal competition, and was replaced by a blue-lined diamond that contains the "Ster" wordmark which uses the
Franklin Gothic typeface, which cements its status as a "dynamic organisation" rather than a "bureaucratic company". Loeki continued during breaks due to his popularity. The new logo debuted on STER's website on 2 January 2002. Since 2003, the opening and closing bumpers have been aligned with the graphics of the three channels. ==References==