Peter van der Vorst, the TV boss of RTL, is confronted by a verbally aggressive media journalist. According to Marcus den Blanken of the AD, he deserves ‘two slaps in the face’.
RTL 4 has become quite monotonous under the leadership of Peter van der Vorst: the station has been filling prime time with only one program for a number of years, and sister channel RTL 5 will soon have to do the same. And there is little news among the few programs that are still broadcast. It’s either the umpteenth season or a spin-off from something.
Scanty figures
It seems that the viewer is punishing it, because the current series of De Verraders, this time with unknown Dutch people, is very disappointing. The program kicked off three weeks ago with more than 1 million viewers and there are only 681 thousand of them left linearly, reports ratings authority Tina Nijkamp on her analysis channel.
Tina: “After Do-it-or-won’t-it, De Verraders is now even the linearly worst-scoring prime-time program of RTL 4 during the week. Certainly not panic figures yet, but for such a big international hit (sold to more than 20 countries) I think these are meager figures.”
Two taps
It is the fault of RTL’s TV boss Peter van der Vorst, says media journalist Marcus den Blanken in the AD Media podcast. “It’s my last podcast, so I can easily say all the things I want here. I really just want to give Peter van der Vorst two slaps, proverbial slaps, in the face.”
His colleague Angela de Jong is really shocked by that. She finds these types of verbal expressions unnecessary. “Shall we just ‘take it easy’? I think that sounds a little friendlier than his face. I find that so humiliating.”
‘He stretches everything!’
Marcus swallows his aggressive words. “Well, I mean wake you up. Friendly taps then. My problem is: that man stretches everything. I don’t know how many seasons of The Traitors this is. I think we were sitting here two years ago saying: ‘Oh, nice, new program.’ And now we are watching the 17th season with four specials in between.”
He also criticizes the blockbuster strategy, where prime time only has one program. “He will now also do it at RTL 5. The programs there should also last 1.5 hours. Everything just stretches. Everything has to last longer. We’re going from 10 to 12 episodes. Man, just make it all a little shorter. Make some more, make some more fun, spend money.”
‘It’s too much’
The intention is that RTL and AD will soon become sister media, because DPG Media wants to take over the channel group. “If you want to belong to AD, to DPG Media, dare to invest instead of stretching everything out,” says Marcus.
Angela agrees with Marcus, except for those ticks. “It really is a lot in terms of seasons. No sooner has one ended than the next begins. It is too much.”