NTR is a Dutch public-service broadcaster, supplying television and radio programming of an informational, educational, and cultural nature to the national public broadcasting system, Nederlandse Publieke Omroep (NPO). NTR was created in 2010, following the merger of the Nederlandse Programma Stichting (NPS) and two educational broadcasters, Televisie Academie (Teleac) and the Radio Volksuniversiteit (RVU). For details of these predecessor organizations, see further below. Public broadcasting organizations in the Netherlands (that is to say, in the Dutch context, listener and viewer associations) do not have their own stations but are allotted airtime on the three public television and eight public radio networks broadly in relation to the size of their respective memberships. NTR, however, as an independently established statutory body, is not a membership-based organization. History RVU (1931–2010) RVU, the Radio Volksuniversiteit (People's University Radio), was the longest-lived educational broadcasting organization in the Netherlands. Established in 1930 by the Bond van Nederlandse Volksuniversiteiten (Federation of Dutch People's Universities), it was at first granted airtime by the AVRO and VARA broadcasting associations. A licence to operate independently was obtained on 14 June 1931 and RVU became a public broadcaster in its own right in 1932. In January 1983 RVU made its first appearance on television, broadcasting a small number of programmes on both Nederland 1 and Nederland 2, before moving to Nederland 3 in 1988. Its mission was to present informative and educational programmes that would encourage listeners' and viewers' active participation in society. Teleac and NOT (1963–2010) An initiative to air educational programming on public television led to the creation of the Television Academy (Teleac) in 1963. Meanwhile Nederlandse Onderwijs Televisie (NOT) (Netherlands Educational Television) began operations on the 27 June 1962, evolving from the Netherlands Education Film board in The Hague. Its purpose was to supply primary and secondary teachers with educational programmes for use in the classroom. These were made in co-operation with Teleac, RVU, and the NOS, although NOT had no broadcasting licence of its own. That changed in 1988, when the new Media Act established NOT as an independent broadcaster and the new organization, together with its employees, moved from The Hague to Hilversum, taking over full responsibility for the schools programmes formerly produced by the NOS. Early, tentative steps to merge the educational broadcasters were made in 1996, with Teleac and NOT – organizations which shared the common goal of producing educational programmes – merging to