'' On Tuesday 24th October 1972 a crisis hit the International Service of RNI. With no prior warning, the English-language service was dissolved and the disc-jockeys sacked.
At 7pm, when the listeners expected to hear Tony Allan, in his place was Dutch DJ Nico Steenbergen.
Dutch programmes then continued until closedown.
A dispute between the English DJs and the Dutch management had resulted in John de Mol, boss of the company, firing them all. Without consulting his partners, Mebo Ltd., he unilaterally decided to replace the International Service with his own programmes.
Although the evening output had millions of listeners, it had very few advertisers and he knew that Dutch programmes would be less trouble and probably make more money.
The parent company Mebo Ltd. was not at all happy with this decision. Station founders Erwin Meister and Edwin Bollier had visions of RNI becoming an important international voice and they were aware that English was more widely understood than Dutch. Mebo over-ruled Mr de Mol and, on 3rd November, the International Service was reinstated.
DJs Brian McKenzie and Mike Ross were brought back and ex-Caroline North DJ Don Allen came in as Senior DJ/Programme Controller.
Mr Bollier's secretary, Eva Pfister, became station manager and DJ Robb Eden moved onto the administration side. Now the evening service was run by Mebo itself, not by the Dutch production company.
On 12th November the Sunday ‘World Service’ was brought back too and on the 20th the evening shows were extended to run 7pm-3am GMT.''
https://www.offshoreradio.co.uk/rni8.htm