It’s starting to become a bit of the TV variant of Groundhog Day: the current season of Chateau Meiland. It really never seems to stop. Why is that? “More money!”
Sooner or later, many TV hits fall victim to a classic mistake: titles are stretched, stretched and stretched to the maximum financial exploitation. For example, zapping people in the Netherlands will not be surprised if they see Eva Jinek still chattering at one o’clock in the morning. It’s typical short-term thinking.
Emergency bell
We now see it happening at Chateau Meiland. The current season has been stretched enormously: tonight is the seventeenth episode and the conclusion will only be seen in two weeks. Oops, isn’t SBS 6 flirting with the overkill ghost here? In any case, the experts at RTL Boulevard sounded the alarm last week, especially now that the scores are falling.
According to experts Joost Maiburg and Tina Nijkamp, these declining ratings have a one-to-one relationship with milking. ‘Boring, long and monotonous’, Joost calls the current series. And Tina argues that the series is way too far behind, because things are now being broadcast that have long passed in the show sections.
More money
Maxime Meiland tells in the Weekend that the soap opera is simply the main income of the family. “That is the series, but that is also because we shoot a lot for the boarding house. I also think it will be more episodes than we agreed, but it is a shame not to include that.”
The interviewer on duty clarifies: “The more episodes, the more money.”
Maxime: “That’s right. But we have to compromise in terms of privacy.”
Not my world
Is there anyone in the Netherlands who thinks that after eight seasons of their soap, the Meilandjes have difficulty surrendering their privacy? Aren’t people who display their lives like this on television simply narcissistic?
Maxime seems to think not. She mainly points to other TV colleagues: “I’m glad that we make TV without really having anything to do with that world. It’s not my world. There is a lot of envy and cocky behavior, while I think: TV is fun, but there is much more besides. Maybe they’re hanging on to that fame, I don’t know.”
Viewing time
The Chateau Meiland viewer now also knows that there is much more besides TV. Is it already too late to turn the tide of ratings? Time will tell…