Jan Slagter, the boss of hit broadcaster MAX, agrees with Angela de Jong’s criticism of Mart Hoogkamer’s TV debut. “These are just friends going on vacation. Does this have to be on NPO 3?”
According to Angela de Jong, it is a travesty that one relevant program after another is being cut at the public broadcaster, while Mart Hoogkamer is allowed to go on a drinking holiday from tax money. “Angela should never contradict you anyway. No, she is right,” says Omroep MAX boss Jan Slagter in the talk show Jinek.
‘She is right’
Angela just has a point, Jan thinks. “She is certainly right. If you look at this like this – I’d never seen it before, but I just watched a bit this afternoon at your request – then it’s just a couple of friends going on vacation and a video was made of it. It is nothing more.”
He continues: “If you’re talking about Het Dorp, which on average 1.2 to 1.4 million people watched, and that it has to disappear… The last word has not yet been said about that. The battle continues, for sure.”
urge to rejuvenate
How is it possible that Mart and his drinking holiday air time get at the NPO? “What I’ve been struggling with for seventeen years is the urge to rejuvenate the public broadcaster. ‘We have to reach young people!’, while young people are no longer watching television.”
He continues: “The average age of the NPO viewer is sixty years, so why do you want to make so much effort to attract young people to NPO 1, 2 or 3? Then do that on YouTube and on those platforms where those young people are and let Het Dorp exist.”
“Does this have to be on TV?”
Jan finds it incomprehensible that Mart’s program has been given a place on the public broadcaster. “You can wonder whether these kinds of programs should still be on NPO 3. 100,000 people are watching it.”
