Marieke Elsinga has two important tasks as presenter of the game show The Jump. She has to say ‘activate the hatches’ and right after that ‘make the jump’. “But she does that so uninspiredly!”
Things are not going well for Marieke Elsinga. She would love to make a career as a presenter of major studio entertainment, but her boss Peter van der Vorst only gives that poor woman nothing. First she had a strange program in which celebrities had to hit all kinds of objects to ‘make music’ and now there is The Jump.
‘Make the jump’
The format of The Jump is wafer-thin, but it is a simple game show: candidates have to answer questions and then jump onto a hatch. If the answer is correct, the hatch remains closed. If the answer is wrong, the candidate will fall down and be chased from the Media Park. What should Marieke do? Not much.
Marieke first has to say ‘activate the shutters’, then there is a sound effect and then she has to shout ‘make the jump’ to the candidates. But of course you want to hear a little passion in that. ‘Possess!’, Willem Nijholt would shout at her. But what does Marieke sound like? As if she is talking to the neighbor after walking her cat.
Shopping list
Lars Duursma, one of the most important communication experts in our country, believes that Marieke communicates this really badly with her viewers. And of course he can know. “It’s a bit like having a shopping list: just buy a carton of milk, a loaf of bread, a bag of apples, make the jump, some more crackers and activate the shutters.”
It’s just not right, his co-host Victor Vlam adds in the podcast The Communicados. He is a media expert and sees that this is wrong. “It’s very unnatural, it’s forced. It doesn’t seem very nice. Marieke Elsinga does not pronounce this very well and that says that she is not yet a very good presenter.”
Catchphrase
Why is it so important that Marieke clearly says ‘activate the hatches’ and ‘make the jump’? “These are so-called catch phrases. Every game show has them. Mies Bouwman also had: ‘Lights off, spotlight on.’ It adds recognizability and takes viewers into a certain atmosphere and a certain world.”
Very important for the format, says Victor. “That is what Marieke Elsinga has simply not done well here. Because indeed, exactly what you say, she spoons it up as if she were just reciting a shopping list. That doesn’t come across very strongly. She’s just honestly not good enough for that as a presenter.”
Delete sentences
Lars thinks it is a huge blunder by the TV makers. “Or those sentences should have simply been deleted. Because if you see that something does not suit a presenter, then maybe you should just delete those sentences.”
Finally, Victor: “A presenter who can handle these kinds of sentences very well is Carlo Boszhard. By making it very big often and exaggerating it. But in doing so he makes it his own. You have to be able to do that, so not every presenter can do that equally well.”