After John de Mol raised his stake in SBS Broadcasting in 2017 to full ownership he sought a partnership with RTL Nederland. In his opinion there wasn't enough space for two major Dutch commercial television networks in the changed media landscape, RTL shut down his offer.
In 2017, John de Mol acquired full ownership of SBS Broadcasting and attempted to partner with RTL Nederland. However, RTL declined his offer because they believed that the market was too saturated with two major Dutch commercial television networks.