This is probably the most comprehensive audio compilation of what was achieved in the first 50 years of the Dutch external radio broadcaster. Radio Netherlands got a shock awakening in the seventies from its cocoon of request shows and Holland promotion. Pete Myers opens with words which could equally well apply to 2012. It was the decade of the attacks on Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics in 1972 and the resignation of President Richard Nixon. The age of the common man had passed to become the age of the common crook. The US pulled out of Saigon. A Dutch correspondent was one of the last to leave Vietnam. No baggage allowed. Was Dr. Spock the architect of the permissive society? Spock says it was connected to his opposition to the war in Vietnam. ABBA wins the Eurovision Contest in 1974.
After some internal opposition, Radio Netherlands added news and introduced current affairs coverage with Afroscene. Tom Meyer took over Eddy Startz at the helm of the Happy Station interviewing the Dutch band Shocking Blue. Roger Broadbent, later head of Radio Netherlands English Department (later Radio Australia), says farewell to Fritz Greveling, the fourth editor of DX Juke Box.
The series was recorded in November 1996 and broadcast in February 1997. Pete Myers wrote the series together with translator and researcher Luc Lucas. They used material from the Radio Netherlands’ sound archives, as well as recordings that from the broadcast collection of Media Network, hosted by Jonathan Marks.