Beaten down by the endless chatter in the interview programs Dorst farm and Island of Beau (both on Sunday evening, both with an atypical celebrity duo, both on location) turned out Moped at sea a pleasant warm bath. Wilfried de Jong had traveled to Menorca for a special broadcast, where Cees Nooteboom entrenched himself every year to write and mess around in his garden.
It was a touching episode, especially at the moments when Nooteboom reflected on his mortality. We saw the metaphors about this mortality mainly in his trees and plants, although Nooteboom himself indicated that he was not a plant, but still a ‘writing man’. His almond tree had been written off countless times, but Nooteboom still kept getting almonds out of pity. When Nooteboom is worried about his beloved cactus plant, he is reassured by an expert: ‘That cactus will live longer than we do.’
Nooteboom and the cactus plant will probably easily last longer than the average culture program of the NPO. This week, the VPRO confirmed that the NPO has canceled after two seasons Moped at sea. It was a liquidation that had been quietly coming for quite some time. The program apparently did not ‘score’ well enough according to the increasing number of viewing fetishists within the NPO top. Or maybe behind the scenes there was simply ‘no Champions League played’, as transgressive behavior on the Hilversum workplace is also called.
Now Özcan Akyol – the thousand-thing cloth of the Mediapark – has to save things again, with a new season of Eus’ book club. Now that was quite a nice program with potential, but the question is whether this culture program – which ultimately also relied on Dutch celebrities – will make it. Because as long as the NPO continues to yo-yo with its cultural programs every few years in an amateurish way, it will never work. Moped at sea may not have been the perfect, ‘compelling’ cultural programme, but it was just good that it existed – however small the ‘target group’ might be in hard numbers.
You especially want a public broadcaster that finally gets shit on viewing figures again, but apparently that is too much to ask in an environment where ‘Champions League’ has to be played in particular. Yet every football fan knows that clubs with such a yo-yo policy will ultimately never qualify for the Champions League; in the end, they mainly keep messing around in the margins. After all, what should the NPO do if Eus also turns out not to be the solution to the ‘book problem’? Try something with Rob Kemps or Emma Wortelboer after a new ratings flop? And, if that doesn’t work either, have Splinter Chabot recite from your own work every week?
The ultimate solution is undoubtedly guessable: place two celebrities (the cactus plants of the small screen) in a remote location (Book farm di Beau?), and let them bring their favorite book. Then the culture program has finally been saved!