De Volkskrant was founded in 1919 and has been a daily morning
newspaper since 1921. Originally
de Volkskrant was a
Roman Catholic newspaper It became a left-wing newspaper in the 1960s, but began softening its stance in 1980. On 23 August 2006 the
Volkskrant published its 25,000th edition. In 1968, the ownership of
De Volkskrant and
Het Parool merged into a new parent, De Perscombinatie.
Het Parool gained control due to the larger investment in the parent. De Perscombinatie started joint printing. In 1975,
Trouw joined. In 1994 De Perscombinatie acquired Uitgeverij Meulenhoff & Co and became PCM Uitgevers. In 1995 PCM acquired the larger Nederlandse Dagblad Unie, owners of the
Algemeen Dagblad en
NRC Handelsblad. In 1996 it acquired
De Volkskrant. PCM was acquired in 2009 by De Persgroep from Belgium and in December 2009 renamed De Persgroup Nederland, now DPG Media Nederland. In 2010,
Pieter Broertjes completed his 20-year tenure as editor-in-chief. In 2013
de Volkskrant was awarded the
European Newspaper of the Year in the category of nationwide newspapers. In October 2006,
de Volkskrant announced it intended to start publishing a free version of its paper, targeting young people. As PCM gave no permission this never happened. ==Circulation==