As a professional TV viewer, Angela de Jong is becoming increasingly annoyed by the countless RTL Boulevard items in which other RTL productions are promoted. “PR machine!”
Shownieuws had the name for a long time, but they have moved away from it a bit: promoting productions of their channel colleagues. But at RTL Boulevard this has been getting worse lately. It is now more of a showcase for RTL’s PR department, with some showbiz news being discussed in between.
Red carpet
Yesterday evening, Luuk Ikink gave free time to colleague Eveline Stallaart to promote her RTL 4 program Married At First Sight. Later that evening in VI she was tackled very hard by Johan Derksen, who finds this TV show disgusting: “Then a pastry or a pig walks in and you have to kiss it and go to bed with it. Cheer up.”
Angela de Jong believes that justified criticism. “It was quite a difference from RTL Boulevard earlier in the evening, which once again allowed itself to be used as an uncritical promotional machine and rolled out the red carpet for their own Eveline Stallaart,” she writes in her infamous column in the A.D.
Lousy
There was not a single critical question from Luuk, according to Angela. “Not a single question about the lousy results of the past eight seasons, while five successful matches in more than forty marriages are meager enough to conclude that science is an unreliable foundation for love.”
According to Angela, a critical note was appropriate. “But of course Daphne Bunskoek didn’t do that. He was only interested in how much drama and fireworks the new season would bring.”
An OK score
How did the new season of Married First Sight actually start yesterday? 815 thousand people watched, good for a 23 percent market share in the commercial target group, writes Tina Nijkamp on her analysis channel. “An OK score, but somewhat lower than last year. Then 1.017 million viewers linear.”
She concludes: “Unfortunately, it is even the least watched linear start of all those seasons. That low record was 844 thousand before the start of 2020. Fortunately, the postponed event is incredibly well watched (and more every year), so don’t panic at RTL.”