Arjen Lubach’s TV career is in the doldrums: the transfer from NPO to RTL did not turn out as expected, and now he is demoted to Videoland after just one season. Painful.
Arjen Lubach sells his relegation from RTL 4 to Videoland as a promotion. He uses a hilarious reason for this: his target group would like to go to bed at 10 p.m., which is why he thinks 9 p.m. on Videoland is much better. But everyone knows what’s going on: Arjen is the odd one out at RTL 4 and he has to make way for Renze.
Golden eggs
Story boss Guido den Aantrekker finds it painful. “The darling of the canal belt suffers a huge defeat. He goes from the main stage of RTL 4 to a place for his fans behind the paywall,” he sneers. Show news.
He continues: “I really think it is one of the biggest tactical mistakes by the RTL TV management that has ever taken place. They took him from VPRO to RTL, thinking they had achieved a kind of goose with golden eggs, but you could count this on your fingers.”
Canal belt
Arjen is much too close to the canal belt, says Guido. “Arjen is a favorite of the canal belt, he has the VPRO audience. The canal belt is a bit of a symbol for the elite in the media. It is people from the VPRO and other public broadcasters who like to watch him.”
“He has a very large audience, but that is not the audience that necessarily likes to watch RTL. They were able to bring a lot of people from the NPO to his time slot, but I think the average RTL viewer actually started zapping. In short: it was not very smart, I think.”
Death house construction
Reporter Janine Schuinder fears the worst for Arjen. “You could also think: this is a funeral home construction with Videoland.”
Now Arjen is often still on the list of powerful broadcasters, but: “Would that remain the case if he disappeared from Videoland?”
Guido: “Let’s face it: the holy grail is evening television between 8:30 PM and 11:30 PM.”
Failed
Dyantha Brooks thinks that Arjen does not work well there. “And you can say: that was not successful.”
Guido: “No. And when it is shown on RTL 4 at 11 p.m., it will be for the second time for the enthusiast, so they won’t watch it, and many people who didn’t like it anyway won’t watch either, so they will all come to Shownieuws. That’s completely fine.”