Ster (Stichting Ether Reclame, English: 'Foundation for Ether Advertisement') is a Dutch organisation responsible for the broadcast of radio and television ads on the media outlets of NPO. With the income from these, parts of the costs of public broadcasting are paid for. STER was founded in 1965 as the ''Stichting tot Uitzenden van Reclame'' ("Foundation for the Broadcasting of Advertisements"); the name was changed to the present name that same year. STER is most famous for

Loeki de Leeuw Loeki de Leeuw (''Loeki the Lion'', also incorrectly spelled as Loekie de Leeuw) is a Dutch stop-motion TV animation, broadcast on Dutch public television between 1972 and 2004, with revivals in 2019 and again since 2021. It features a puppet lio ...

, an animated puppet which appeared at the beginning and ending of all of STER's commercials from 1972 until 2004, and again in 2019 and from 2021 onwards.

Content and timing

STER may not use more than 10% of the airtime per year on advertisement and daily not more than 15% and also not air ads within programs (as happens on the Dutch commercial stations). For programming with long runtimes, like UEFA Champions League events, they consider the pregame (produced by NOS), each half of the game (first half produced by AVRO, second half produced by KRO), halftime (produced by NCRV), and the postgame (produced by VARA) as separate standalone programs in their programming guide and air ads between them. STER is responsible for the contents of the ads which have to be strictly separate from the programs on the public networks and not influence the programming. Complaints about ads can be made at the (in English: "Advertising Code Committee", comparable to the Advertising Standards Authority in the UK). STER contributes about 200 million euro to the total budget of 900 million euro (2013) of the Dutch Public Broadcaster.

History

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". The slogan used by the association, ("You never miss a day without your newspaper") called for the survival of the industry. Other commercials on the first break included Syntraciet coal ovoids, Kwatta chocolates, Jumbo board games and Zenith watches. On 1 March 1968, Ster started radio broadcasts with slots on Hilversum 1, 2 and 3. The company's logo was designed in 1966 by Karel van Hes and followed a style similar to

M. C. Escher Maurits Cornelis Escher (; ; 17 June 1898 – 27 March 1972) was a Dutch graphic artist who made woodcuts, lithography, lithographs, and mezzotints, many of which were Mathematics and art, inspired by mathematics. Despite wide popular int ...

with four blocks. It is estimated that this arrangement of the logo appeared a million times from 1967 to 2001, when the current logo was adopted. Between commercials, in its first five years on air, an optical consisting of a wave effect was shown. Ster started using

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 for the first time of 36 years since its establishment in 1965. The 36-year-old 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.Ster heeft nieuw logo
/ref> Since 2003, the opening and closing bumpers have been aligned with the graphics of the three channels.

References

External links

* * Dutch public broadcasting organisations STER Dutch-language television networks Television channels and stations established in 1965 Mass media companies established in 1965 Advertising agencies of the Netherlands {{netherlands-tv-stub