Art Rooijakkers hopes that Ruben Nicolai will leave RTL as soon as possible, because he will simply get fewer opportunities. This is stated by the well-known TV expert Victor Vlam.
It is quite striking: almost everything that Ruben Nicolai (48) touches on RTL 4 turns to gold. He is used for many programs, but this does have consequences for fellow presenters. And especially for someone like Art Rooijakkers (47), says the well-known TV expert Victor Vlam in his podcast The Communicados.
At the top
Art is a relatively interchangeable and colorless presenter, and is normally used for the same type of programs that Ruben is also asked for. The only difference is that Ruben knows how to strike the right chord with the viewers at home, but that Art is actually just not. And painfully enough, he was kicked out of the TV hit B&B Vol Liefde.
At the moment, Art just has to accept that Ruben is extremely popular, according to Victor. “He’s just at the top right now. Enjoy it, because at some point it will really start to diminish again. It certainly won’t get better than this.”
Envy
Ruben’s success also has a downside, the TV show viewer continues. “There will certainly be envy. I can imagine that Art Rooijakkers, when he walks into the canteen of RTL and sees Ruben Nicolai standing there, he thinks to himself: damn, I would like to see him switch to John de Mol.”
“Because Art Rooijakkers doesn’t have that much to do there and Ruben Nicolai really, really, really gets everything they put on the channel there at RTL 4, so you can bet that a lot of people are disappointed about that.”
Cup of coffee
Lars Duursma, communications expert and co-host of Victor, can imagine all kinds of things. “That you’re just considering throwing a cup of coffee over someone just before the recording or something. To take someone out of their story for a moment. Haha.”
Why is Ruben so successful? Victor: “I think because he is subordinate to the format. He’s actually someone who plays the role of the everyman plays very well. That’s a bit of a prototype, a term from the film world, of an ordinary man. Someone who is humble, who has a bit of humor, with whom the viewer can identify.”
Not dominant
Ruben scores because he is ‘not too special’, he thinks. “And that is very different from other presenters. Carlo Boszhard is not the everyman at all. That’s someone with a very big, dominant personality. The same of course applies to Gerard Joling and to a certain extent to Tijl Beckand. Ruben Nicolai is not terribly dominant.”
“He has enough humor to be interesting for the viewer, but is not someone who imposes his personality very much. And that is also reflected, because Ruben’s only flop in recent years is a personality program: The Big Show. (…) He is subservient and I think that is why he is successful.”