Radio personality Willem van Kooten has died at the age of 83, the Top 40 Foundation and Radio Veronica reported late on Friday evening. He is seen as the founder of hit radio in the Netherlands, had his own record label and played an important role in the career of Golden Earring, among others.
In the 1960s, Van Kooten made waves under the pseudonym Joost den Draaijer at pirate channel Radio Veronica, which broadcast from the North Sea. As a 19-year-old student looking for some money, he started there as a copywriter for commercials.
He soon got his own program Joost May Know!which became extremely popular mainly because of its unprecedented smooth style full of puns. In 1964 he became program director of Radio Veronica and after gaining inspiration during a trip to the United States, he introduced the Veronica Top 40. He presented the weekly broadcast of the first Dutch hit list himself.
Innovative ideas
Radio maker Erik de Zwart praises Van Kooten for his creativity. “He is the godfather of all disc jockeys,” he says on the Top 40 website. Van Kooten also came up with innovative ideas such as horizontal programming with the same DJ at the same time every day and music programs with a certain genre at the same recurring time. . He was also the inventor of the term Palingsound for music by artists from Volendam.
After leaving Radio Veronica in 1968 due to a business and artistic difference of opinion, Van Kooten worked for Radio Noordzee, Hilversum 3 and in the mid-1980s for offshore station Radio Monique.
Successful record executive
In addition to his work for the radio, Van Kooten was also a successful record executive. He had under the name RedBullet its own record company, production company and music publisher.
He thus played an important role in the success of bands such as Golden Earring, Shocking Blue and the George Baker Selection. He was criticized for playing and unashamedly promoting records that he had produced himself as a DJ. That was the main reason for his departure from Radio Veronica. Later he wore with RedBullet also contributes to the success of Het Goede Doel, Wolter Kroes and Jeroen van den Boom.
Later in life he was mainly a businessman and, according to business magazine Quote, he amassed a fortune of around 200 million euros. He became increasingly involved in real estate trading, especially in Portugal. He lived there most of the time and also operated a golf course.
Awards and honors
In 2006, Van Kooten was appointed Officer in the Order of Orange-Nassau, in 2007 he received his own street sign at the entrance to the Mediapark in Hilversum with the Joost den Draaijer roundabout and in 2018 he was honored with a Marconi Oeuvre Award.
“What fun I had around him and with him,” writes former radio maker and current mayor of Vijfheerenlanden Sjors Fröhlich following his death on X. “And learned a lot from it, about radio, business, politics and life. You will be missed Willem.”