In 2004, Frans Klein had only just become media director at the Vara when he decided to intervene rigorously in the programming of Nederland 3: the popular talk show B&W, with TV icons Sonja Barend and Paul Witteman, he removes from the tube. Instead, he wants a new talk show. It must The world goes on will be called, and will be presented alternately by Francisco van Jole and Matthijs van Nieuwkerk.
Because the presentation quality differs too much between the two, he soon sends Van Jole away. Against the inexperienced Van Nieuwkerk, which he program The guide has seen present and in whom he recognizes a natural talent, he says: ‘Matthijs, we are going to write TV history’, he recalled in 2017 in de Volkskrant.
Integrity investigation
Klein (57) is right. Arjen Fortuin, former TV critic of NRC, calls the daily talk show, which will end in 2020, is ‘one of the monuments of Dutch TV history, and by far the most influential program of the twenty-first century’. Klein himself also receives recognition. In 2014 he became video director at the NPO, one of the most powerful places in Hilversum. He is ultimately responsible for the programming of NPO 1, 2 and 3 and is allowed to distribute half a billion euros annually. Klein will become Omroepman of the year in 2020, exceptional for someone who operates behind the scenes.
But DWDD also means, at least for now, the demise of Klein. On Tuesday it was announced that he is temporarily stepping down as director of video. This should prevent a discussion about the independence of the research that the NPO will conduct into the course of events behind the scenes at the program.
This research follows a publication in de Volkskrant last Friday, in which more than fifty employees witnessed Van Nieuwkerk’s ‘extreme outbursts of anger and public humiliation’ DWDD qualified as cross-border. Dozens of editors dropped out with burnouts. As media director of the Vara, Klein was warned about the situation on several occasions. He didn’t intervene.
Klein seemed untouchable so far. He has been discredited more than once. Because of his supposed omnipotence in Hilversum – to which he owes nicknames such as the Mao of the Mediapark and the Napoleon of Hilversum. Because he was a director of a letterbox company for his brother, who was struggling with debts. And by personally getting involved in the integrity investigation that followed.
‘TV Beast’
Frans Klein, born in 1965, grew up in Hilversum’s Vogelbuurt in a poor family with fourteen children. His parents fled from Soekarno’s Indonesia in the 1950s. Father dies early, leaving mother on her own and Klein starts taking care of his younger brothers and sisters at the age of nine. The bright boy goes to parents’ evenings, among other things.
After completing HAVO, he will go to HES, the University of Applied Sciences for Economic Studies. He cuts off that training in the third year, when his brother develops stomach cancer. In 1988 he starts working in the financial department of the Vara to assist his mother.
He’s always been a “TV beast.” He owes his coming out to the medium, he says in the interview with de Volkskrant. ‘Because I saw how openly people talked about things like this on Sonja Barend’s talk show, I also dared to come out of the closet.’
Klein moves up the ranks within the Vara and joins management in 1998. Six years later, he becomes media director. In that role he succeeds in making difficult content accessible, says former Vara director Mark Minkman in 2018 against NRC. He cites the ‘sandwich formula’ as an example DWDD. A talk show with funny films and the Concertgebouw Orchestra. ‘That is the idea of elevation,’ says Minkman. ‘Bringing science and the arts to the people.’
Klein outlined his working method to this newspaper, which largely consisted of managing ‘the stable’; the star presenters of the Vara, such as Jack Spijkerman, Paul de Leeuw, Jeroen Pauw and Matthijs van Nieuwkerk. To keep them for public broadcasting, he regularly went out to dinner with them. During the annual press photo, he allows himself to be surrounded by the stars of public broadcasting.
The method-Klein
From the former employees who de Volkskrant talked about the culture of fear DWDD a number came into contact with Klein on the talk show. According to a former employee, the quiet Javanese, as the nickname he has given himself, once appeared there in a chic terry cloth tracksuit to toast the success under the watchful eye of editors with Van Nieuwkerk.
As director of video, he stands out for his decisiveness. He lets programs that he thinks have had their day stop. Leading titles such as Lingo, Sesame Street and Man bites dog come to an end. The Klein method pays off. Between 2015 and 2021, the NPO’s market share on television will increase from 30.6 to 36.3 percent, the highest percentage since Stichting KijkOnderzoek started keeping track of those figures in 2002.
At the same time, Klein’s power arouses disgust. Program makers depend on Klein’s whims and have no idea on what basis he shoots their ideas. In 2021, the Central Works Council will complain about this in a letter to the Executive Board. The COR wrote that it is ‘worrying’ that Klein is ahead of his intuition, reported Follow the Money. ‘It raises the question of what the preconditions are for the NPO to achieve the wide range, if at the same time the intuition of one person is so leading.’
According to the Media Act, the director of video and the network managers are responsible for the coordination and programming of the television channels. The broadcasters are about the content. But according to makers, Klein also interferes with the content. If Klein speaks negatively about the Avrotros title Care.nuthe name changes to Doctors of tomorrowsources said at NRC.
Dubious office
From 2015, Klein will fulfill a double function within the NPO, when he will also become the network manager of NPO 1. In this capacity, he will be accountable to the director of video – in other words to himself. This situation will come to an end when Remco van Westerloo takes over his role at NPO 1 in 2019.
In the same year, Klein is in the news because of activities outside Hilversum. NRC reveals than that he was a director of a letterbox company until 2016. Together with a brother, with whom he owned two Thai restaurants, he set up this construction through a controversial trust office, which touted its services as a method of avoiding creditors and evading taxes. A creditor stated in the newspaper that because of this it was not possible to collect a claim from the broadcaster’s brother.
Klein said that he should not have done business with the dubious firm “with the knowledge of today”, but emphasized to NRC that he had not broken the law. “I did it all for my little brother. It didn’t make me a penny wiser myself.’
Furious
Because Klein had not reported his position at the letterbox company to the NPO, the Public Broadcasting Integrity Committee (Cipo) launched an investigation. In this context, Gert-Jan Hox, then BNNVara director, provided all of Klein’s declarations. This showed, among other things, that Klein had celebrated his silver jubilee at BNNVara at his own restaurant Thaicoon at the expense of that broadcaster.
Although the Cipo declared the expenses to be legitimate – a co-director had given permission – Klein was furious about Hox’s attitude. According to Hox, Klein threatened in a telephone conversation that providing the declarations would have ‘consequences’ for BNNVara’s ‘trade’, reported Argos. The NPO stated in a response that Klein can no longer remember that statement, but acknowledged that he would have reacted ‘too emotionally’.
Last Saturday, Klein’s position came under discussion again, this time because of the program he sees as his greatest success. “Perhaps we thought that violent behavior was normal in many places in the media world,” he said about the work culture at DWDD against de Volkskrant. ‘I’m not proud of it, I don’t think it’s pretty – but that work culture was so hard in many places in Hilversum. I myself grew up in the Vara area. I have not always been a big Frans Klein, I was also a small Frans Klein. There was awe, firmness, there were direct confrontations. I think with today’s vocabulary I would say: there was a culture of fear.”
With the cooperation of Abel Bormans and Willem Feenstra