Jan Slagter, the boss of Omroep MAX, was completely out of his mind yesterday in the talk show Beau. He is angry with Suzanne Kunzeler, the boss of fellow broadcaster BNNVARA. “With her bun!”
It is striking that the people who stand up for Matthijs van Nieuwkerk are all elderly gentlemen. Jan Slagter has been downplaying the presenter’s misconduct since before the Volkskrant article had even appeared. “Why can’t you be angry every now and then? That can sometimes happen,” he said Friday at HLF8.
John is angry
Jan, who is rather old-fashioned at 68, believes that character assassination is not only being committed on Matthijs, but also on NPO’s TV director Frans Klein, who has overlooked the misconduct for years. The boss of Omroep MAX is more concerned about their fate than about the suffering of all their dozens of victims.
It particularly bothers Jan that the brand new BNNVARA boss Suzanne Kunzeler wants to clean up and has made Frans’s position more or less untenable. She said at Nieuwsuur last Monday: “It makes sense to me that no research can be done by the NPO, because of the involvement of Frans Klein.”
Steam from ears
The steam came out of Jan’s ears yesterday in the talk show Beau. He thinks that Frans was thrown in front of the bus by Suzanne, while it is customary in Hilversum for broadcasting bosses to keep each other’s hand above their heads. “We owe a lot to Frans Klein. The programming of the public broadcaster is rock solid.”
Jan is disgusted with Suzanne. “Suzanne Kunzeler was at Nieuwsuur and gave a soothing speech, well rehearsed. Okay, I sincerely hope… I thought it was very late. Anyway, in the end she apologized, but she also dealt the death blow to Frans Klein. (…) I find that really outrageous, so to speak.”
Bun
Angela de Jong disagrees. “I think it’s good that the cesspool is now opening up in Hilversum. You think it’s outrageous what Suzanne Kunzeler did at Nieuwsuur, but I was practically cheering in front of the television, because I thought: finally a broadcasting director who doesn’t hold his hand over Frans Klein again. Everyone covers for each other there all the time.”
With the latter, Angela also refers to Jan, who defends both Matthijs and Frans. The gray broadcasting bobo: “This is BNNVARA’s street sweeping, which she did. This was just putting the blame there and BNNVARA: look, we are so good, black blouse on, hair in a bun and look how humble I am now apologizing.”
Barbary
Jan thinks that the focus is too much on French. His successors at BNNVARA escape the dance, says the broadcaster. He mentions names and back numbers: “Gerard Timmer, Robert Kievit. Even the current director of BNNVARA, Lonneke van der Zee, was board secretary at the time. Gert-Jan Hox.”
Angela: “But they are not all Video Director at the NPO now.”
Jan: “But they are now directors at NOS (Gerard Timmer, ed.)! Hello!”
Angela: “I like him too. But let’s say that Frans Klein is the first then.”
Jan: “Yes, but you are all like: barbertje must hang. I think it’s so unreasonable. We are going to cancel and Frans Klein must be cancelled! And that’s what’s happening!”
Tweet
A tweet from Rob Goossens, the TV connoisseur of RTL Boulevard:
