It is inevitable that Arjen Lubach will be approaching New Year’s Eve with a knot in his stomach: was that switch to RTL 4 such a good idea? “The Even Tot Hier duo is much better!”
Arjen Lubach has lost his magic. Somehow his relevance and impact have decreased extremely sharply since he switched from the country’s most watched TV channel NPO 1 to the commercial RTL 4. The most painful thing is that he did not make a dent in the past elections; really no one was talking about Arjen.
No duplication
One of the side issues why Arjen left the public broadcaster – the main reason was of course money – is that he could not decide for himself in which broadcast weeks he could be seen. The top broadcasters did not want a duplication with Even Tot Hier: the two programs were never broadcast in the same week. And now it appears why Arjen benefited from that.
Even Tot Hier has returned with one scared: the item about Marco Borsato was extremely discussed and the viewing figures are sky high. And Arjen can only dream of that now. To make matters worse, he also has one TV critic after another coming over him. This time it is Tina Nijkamp’s turn.
Back on track
Tina was critical of Even Tot Hier for a while, but thinks that Niels van der Laan and Jeroen Woe have recovered. “I thought it was much, much better than the past two seasons anyway,” she says in the podcast The Media Week.
The gentlemen have dropped a number of gray program components. “I thought that was good. I thought: you are back back on trackbecause I found the previous two seasons very angry and sour. Very anti everything. And another joke about Gordon, another joke about Rachel Hazes. I thought it was more original now.”
Better than Lubach
The season opener was pure enjoyment, according to Tina. “I really enjoyed it and I also thought: they are so much better than Lubach. That’s what I thought too.”
Co-host Mark Koster agrees: “Happier. And what’s nice: Lubach has an audience, but they have to clap for him, and the audience joins in. Those games are also fun.”