Özcan Akyol sympathizes with television colleague Ivo Niehe, who has recently come under considerable fire for star behavior. “In reality, there is a scared little boy in him.”
Ivo Niehe amazes me by presenting a laundry list of requirements at every media appearance. At NPO Radio 1, all studio webcams must be turned off, at Time for MAX he refuses to sit at the table with another guest. It causes incredible surprise. Critics explain to the 76-year-old presenter that his name is Ivo Niehe and not Jennifer Lopez.
Scary little boy
However, we shouldn’t be so hard on an Ivo like that, says Özcan Akyol. He thinks that the presenter comes across as very different from what he really is. “As crazy as this sounds, there are people in television who are deadly insecure and scared,” he says in his letters column in the VARA guide.
He continues: “I get the impression that this also applies to Ivo Niehe. It is now translated differently, as if he were arrogant and annoying, but in reality there is a scared little boy in him who fears that he could lose everything he has built at any moment.”
Annoying man
VARA guide reader Menno complains about Ivo in Özcan’s column. This reader has listened to the entire interview with Ivo on NPO Radio 1 and says: “I noticed that Ivo Niehe is still such a vain control freak even after his working life.”
Menno was completely annoyed. “He was constantly trying to copy Gijs’ interview, had banned the webcam (you never know how you will be filmed) and constantly bombarded the listeners with stale anecdotes that he thought we should hear. What an annoying (and insecure) man.”
Very unnecessary
Özcan agrees with Ivo that those webcams at NPO Radio 1 are very annoying. “I think radio with image is a totally unnecessary invention. Just call it television. Is there nothing sacred in our little country anymore? Soon there will be cameras in the toilets of the Mediapark.”
Which celebrity has remained normal according to Özcan? “They sometimes talk about Talpa stars, but Victor Brand is without a doubt the greatest, because he almost always delivers and never suffers from his ego, unlike some of the other employees of that company, such as Gordon.”