Frans Klein will leave as director of video at NPO on 1 August. The organ of the public broadcasting system has this on Friday announced. Klein temporarily stepped down as director of video at the end of last year, pending an investigation into the working atmosphere at The world goes on. He stopped “to prevent any discussion about the independence of the investigation.”
As media director of BNNVARA, Klein was closely involved in the recordings of DWDD and since 2014 has been responsible for the television programming of the NPO. According to de Volkskrant Klein knew about the working atmosphere under TV presenter Matthijs van Nieuwkerk, but he did little to change it. Van Nieuwkerk would have had extreme rages and there would have been “structural transgressive behavior”.
The NPO does not mention a specific reason why Klein will not return. Frederieke Leeflang, chairman of the Board of Directors of the NPO, says in a short response that the NPO “has taken a new path” and is developing “a new strategy”. The position has been filled since last November by Remco van Leen and Jojanneke Doorn. The NPO is initiating an appointment procedure for a new video director.
Shortly after the publication of the Volkskrantarticle announced to have an investigation carried out by an independent party. Specifically, that research is about what exactly happened behind the scenes at DWDD, what signals there have been and what has been done with those signals. The NPO said that the investigation had to be completed by the end of March and that there must therefore be an action plan with concrete steps. For the time being, the NPO has not yet published any research.