Johan Derksen thinks that the megaflop Avastars proves once again that John de Mol has only collected yes-men around him. “He could have saved thirty million with me!”
The number of John de Mol’s TV ideas that mercilessly flop can no longer be counted, but the current TV flop Avastars is perhaps one of the most painful. The media tycoon has been working on his dancing and singing digital dolls for twenty years, but the viewer is not at all enthusiastic about it. It all looks very dated too.
John critical
Johan Derksen finds it incredible that this has even made it to the screen, he says Inside today. “Those people have seriously worked on this for years. They thought it was a great idea and they worked hard for it. But I was watching for a while and I think: There is nothing human about this program. Those are dolls.”
Colleague Wilfred Genee: “That’s the idea, isn’t it?”
Johan: “No, but something that is not human… then you can also sit and watch a Donald Duck cartoon, you know. And the fact that it is technically very difficult to realize this is of no concern to the viewer. If you take out the human, then there is no attention from the audience.”
‘Great idea!’
Johan points out that Today Inside is indeed human television. “Look, we’re starting something like this… We don’t know what’s going to happen. One calls something crazy, you do some ordinary things. I’m ashamed, but something always happens. But there is a doll dancing.”
Wilfred: “But yes, look, the tricky part is of course: two years ago he was already telling Shownieuws about this…”
Johan: “Well, they were very critical about it, those people around him, weren’t they? They all thought it was a great idea.”
Wilfred: “A lot of money was invested, software was developed, all kinds of people were let loose. But it’s not quite what it should be.”
René van der Gijp also finds it laughable: “You do have grown people who give figures to dolls!”
30 million euros
Johan: “I haven’t read one good review, have I? Not one.”
Wilfred: “Well, it’s kind of silly. I mean, you put a lot of time and effort into it, but it didn’t quite work out.”
Johan: “Yes, it is silly, but it is also done with blinkers. I can’t imagine that people around him haven’t said – or they’re afraid: ‘John, this isn’t such a good idea.’ If I had been there, he would have made 30 million in this short period of time, because then I would have said, ‘John, we won’t do that, we won’t do that and we won’t do that.’”
Yes marbles
A good team separates the wheat from the chaff, says Johan. “That’s useful to him, to someone like that. But all those yes-men… I am always afraid that your heads of those executives will roll over the table again from nodding yes.”
He continues: “The art of commercial TV is to sit in the viewer’s seat. What does the viewer like? Frankly, with all modesty, I’ve always had success with that at VI, to sit in the reader’s chair. I always said: ‘If a reader wants a smoked sausage on the cover, there will be a smoked sausage on the cover.’ And then you sell a lot of magazines.”
Fragment
The excerpt from VI:
