Johnny de Mol is very disappointed, at least for the stage, that his talk show HLF8 is being taken off the tube. “The team wants to prove Talpa wrong next month!”
It started as Johnny de Mol’s talk show, but after his more or less forced TV break, both the presentation and the format of HLF8 have been turned upside down. The presenter has recently been back on Fridays, but that has not helped. The ratings have remained low and that is why the show is now off the tube.
Johnny surprised?
It is of course inconceivable that Johnny is not involved in this decision-making, since his father John de Mol is the boss of SBS 6. Nevertheless, the presenter did yesterday in HLF8 like it isn’t.
Table guest Royce de Vries asks him: “Were you able to have a good conversation with your father?”
Johnny feigns that he is also surprised: “Well, of course we did feed them. Yesterday we heard… I wanted to say ‘all of a sudden’, but it’s not all of a sudden, because it was tense. We were actually going to continue until April 28, everyone was excited: will it continue or not next season?”
Been through a lot
Then Johnny pretends that he just heard the news, and supposedly not from his father. “Yesterday afternoon I got a call from Marco Louwerens, hey, director: ‘Unfortunately we’re going to stop and not April 28, but April 7.’ He came here to tell us that after the show last night.”
He continues: “Hélène has been informed, Sam has not yet, because he still had to make a show. Then you are dealing with an editorial team that has experienced a lot with this program for two years. If we are going to list it, I think we have experienced more in two years than in fifteen years of De Wereld Draait Door.”
eh? “Well, that may not be entirely true. Other example. But that did cut it. After all, they are people who will have to look for a new job after April 7. It’s that simple.”
Talpa wrong
Johnny thinks that there was indeed growth in the program. “Yes, we felt that too. There have been course changes, everyone has adapted. What I say: lows, highs. We had not expected and certainly not hoped for this. I did notice defeat at the editorial office today, anger too, sadness.”
They have another four weeks to go. “Well, during the day I did see people sink their teeth and say: wait a minute, let’s just blast these four weeks so hard and, for what it’s worth, Talpa’s wrong – because that’s what we’re talking about – prove.”
He continues: “Ehm, but it did indeed go better. It felt good, we had good outliers to the top, but unfortunately. Four more weeks.”
Bad guest list
According to Shownieuws star Evert Santegoeds, the HLF8 guest list was just bad, he says in the podcast Strictly Private. “I can imagine that if you put Fred Teeven there a few times a week, that is not the solution to your problem at half past seven. That was already the case for Pastor Gremdaat, who is also a bit past his best before date.”
And colleague Jordi Versteegden points to the many performances by Bastiaan Ragas. “I thought: why is he there now? Because of what expertise?”