John de Mol (70) is in a hurry because he wants to sell his company Talpa while Today Inside is still on the air. And Johan Derksen will be 77 (!) years old the day after tomorrow. “He also needs to get rid of that store at some point.”
John de Mol’s dream scenario was the sale of his media company Talpa to RTL, but that failed because the ACM banned it. And now the 70-year-old media billionaire is left with a company for which there are almost no potential buyers. However, he is sitting on a ticking time bomb, because what is flagship SBS 6 actually worth without Johan Derksen?
John is in a hurry
Johan celebrates his 77th birthday the day after tomorrow and is of course the pillar on which half the company rests. “John of course wants us to continue for a while,” says the VI mustache in the Coffee podcast. “John is now over seventy and has to get rid of that store at some point, but Talpa is so big that there are few companies that can buy him.”
Without Today Inside, Talpa is a less attractive company, he says. “With a program that has a million viewers every evening, its channel is worth much more than if you do not have such a program and you have to broadcast repeats of the Meilandjes.”
77 years
John does not have to worry that Johan will quit VI on his own accord. “I am now turning 77, but if you stop working, you are suddenly an old man and I want to avoid that. You just have to keep busy.”
He continues: “I’m very busy. I do a TV show every day, I do radio every day and I have a podcast. I’m a jack of all trades and that keeps me young, because you remain part of society.”
Not business
What does Johan actually do in a podcast that promotes a specific brand of coffee? “If I say to you: ‘I’ll come by’, then I’ll come by. Those stars in Hilversum immediately have a bill of four or six thousand euros when they drop by. What nonsense, you know.”
He does get paid royally by Talpa. “I spend three hours in the car for an hour of television, but I get a small compensation for it.”
