The market-leading radio station in the Netherlands, Radio 538, has announced that it plans to start its own TV channel in spring 2010.

The station’s director Jan-Willem Brüggenwirth told Broadcast Magazine that he is already in discussion with the cable companies, and they are ready to pay for the channel that will be offered in their digital packets, though the financial terms have still to be agreed.

The station will be based on the kind of music played on Radio 538, but Mr Brüggenwirth says it will be different from the existing TV music channels, as it will include more original material filmed at the live events that Radio 538 has organised or been involved in.

Reviving the TV version of the weekly Top 40 is also under consideration. The popular hitparade was televised earlier in the 1980s by Veronica TV which was then a public broadcaster, and since the 1990s by commercial stations RTL5, SBS6 and TMF. The radio version of the show has run almost without interruption since 1965.

Radio 538, a commercial station currently owned by RTL, took to the airwaves in 1992 targeting a young audience. Its format can be described as Top-40, R&B and dance, mixed with recent oldies and presented by personality deejays.

At a Radio 538 live event (Photo: Radio 538/Gerard Henninger)