Bridget Maasland does not think it is useful that Leonie ter Braak makes her presentation debut on RTL 4 with the balloon show Blow Up. “This is not the smartest move.”
The new season of Blow Up got off to a really bad start on RTL 4 on Saturday evening. In fact, for Leonie ter Braaks co-host Martijn Krabbé, this is a direct blemish on his beautiful TV career. Only 352 thousand people watched it. “Last weekend it was Pentecost and the weather was nice,” Bridget Maasland notes in the BLVD Podcast.
“Ooh, very painful”
That combination is killing, says the RTL Boulevard star. “That really only means one thing for Hilversum, of course: the viewing figures were dramatic, horror. You don’t want that as a television-making Netherlands. But I also enjoyed it, to be honest. Not from the poor viewing figures, but from the beautiful weather.”
Still, Bridget wonders to what extent Blow Up’s low ratings are due to those factors. “The first episode of Blow Up was of course the first job for Leonie at RTL. She only achieved – ooh, that was really painful – 352 thousand viewers. Yes, can we blame this entirely on the nice weather and the Pentecost weekend?”
Not interesting
No, thinks Rob Goossens. He says: “It also looks like one perfect stormwhere people had something like: well I’m going to sit outside the garden, and it just didn’t really matter at all what was on television.”
He continues: “But it must have been the most sour for Leonie, because it was her real debut on RTL 4. She also said that she started doing this because her children like it so much. She made it super big and that eventually the whole of the Netherlands was like: I’d rather sit in the garden, that’s not a very good start…”
Bridget critical
Bridget thinks that RTL 4 boss Peter van der Vorst has made a mistake here. “I also think, if I may think so, it may not be the smartest move from RTL to do this first.”
She continues: “Because Leonie of course said in the beginning, I think with the gentlemen of Today Inside: ‘I really want more content in the programs, so make substantive programs.’ And then you can do a Blow Up next to it, of course. But perhaps it was not convenient to bring this first.”
Made fun of
Once, says Rob. “Yes, good point, also because you see that she is now being ridiculed a bit. (…) And then you are unlucky with the good weather in a long weekend off. And then suddenly you have a kind of flop. Of course it’s not a flop, is it?”
Ehh, of course it’s not a flop? 352 thousand viewers is just ridiculously bad. Bridget: “It’s not a good start. Emotionally. But I am sure she will straighten that out completely.”
Can someone from the podcast editors Annemarie de Kunder fly in again as a viewing figure expert? He has more of a view.