John de Mol has seen his image tilt considerably. Where he used to be the TV prodigy who delivered world hits, people now laugh at him for laughable shows like Avastars. “He infected SBS 6.”
Media connoisseur Victor Vlam agrees with John de Mol’s critics. He thinks Avastars is proof that the media billionaire has lost his sense of making TV. “Actually, you can see within a few minutes why it is not so successful. That’s because those dolls just don’t move realistically,” he says in the podcast The Communicados.
Flop brand
John delivers flop after flop, according to Victor. “We Want More, House of Talent, De Hollandse Nieuwe, Ministars, I Want Your Song, The Next Pop Talent, Beat Me, The Next Boy/Girl Band, DanceSing. And those are just a few of the talent shows he’s tried out. All flopped. Really all flopped indeed.”
As a result, the viewer no longer has confidence in the Talpa brand, he thinks. “I think that’s one of the reasons why Avastars also flopped. Because unfortunately Talpa is now just a kind of flop brand. The image of the company, the channel, has been contaminated by all those flops.”
The new Voice
According to Victor, the image of John as a creative genius is being dealt with. “I think that very often in the past there has been a lot of talk about: this is going to be the new The Voice. And that people would watch and think to themselves: yes, this is actually just a very bad program.”
“And if that happened once, twice or three times in the past, yes, then at some point you are of course no longer interested in what is shown on that channel. So you don’t give it a chance anymore.”
Big deal
John’s business card is smeared, Victor believes. “It used to be really one big deal when John de Mol announced a new program. Then it was the man from Big Brother and The Voice who came up with something new.”
“Nowadays we are no longer surprised by that. And that is the result of this strategy that has been going on for more than ten years with trying as many things as possible. His transmitter is actually contaminated.”
Communicados
The podcast De Communicados: