Joop van den Ende contacted Tina Nijkamp by telephone about a column she wrote about him in De Telegraaf. “I actually never get a call after a column.”
TV authority Tina Nijkamp was annoyed this month by the full-page advertisements with which Joop van den Ende campaigned for a strong public broadcaster. She also wrote a column about it The Telegraphin which she accuses him of a commercial interest — daughter Iris is a TV producer — but also a lack of vision.
‘You went in hard’
Media journalist Mark Koster thinks it’s great that Tina stands up to him. “We think highly of the great Joop van den Ende, but Tina Nijkamp is the girl who sits at the front of the class and says to the teacher: ‘I don’t agree with you!’ That’s how it always feels with Joop van den Ende. If you contradict that, he will find it difficult. You went into it hard.”
Tina on that in the podcast The Media Week: “Yes, I thought: another advertisement like that. He paid 260,000 euros for it, he later told Pauw & De Wit. He had a full-page advertisement in fourteen national newspapers. I immediately think: who can afford that? Money is power. This is the second time he bought such an advertisement for the same thing.”
Vague and unclear
What was Tina’s criticism? “I just thought the story was a bit vague and not clear. He confused two things: American influence and public broadcasting must remain strong. He pretended that everyone thought it should be abolished, but only the PVV wants that and everyone else wants to keep it or improve it.”
She continues: “I had hoped that he had a plan for that, because if anyone knows how to reorganize a company or how to achieve maximum profit with minimal resources, then Joop van den Ende and John de Mol know that. But there was nothing in it!”
Phone call from Joop
Mark is curious about what feedback Tina has received. “Do you know what it is, Tina? When you write a column like that, you often get a phone call too?”
Tina: “Well, I don’t often get calls about my column.”
Mark: “But Mr. Van den Ende, who I have also spoken to, calls.”
Tina: “Yes, that’s right. He did call me.”
Mark: “And he doesn’t agree with you?”
Tina: “That’s right. I never actually get a call after a column, but this time I did get a call.”
Homework
When exactly did Joop’s call come? “I was sitting in the living room with my son, because I had to help him with homework. I was sitting on the couch and we were doing French, I think, or physics. He needed to be helped with something. I can’t even help him with physics, because I don’t understand it at all, but okay.”
“Anyway, he wanted my attention, but I said, ‘No, I just need to make this phone call.’ It was an unknown number and it was indeed Joop. He said, ‘I don’t agree with you.’ Furthermore, he is a very nice man.”
Bad interview
Tina also told him the truth, something Tim de Wit did not dare to do at Pauw & De Wit, according to Tina. “I especially didn’t like Tim de Wit there.”
“Do you know what happens with Joop and John? What a lot of men have when they are with Joop or John… A lot of men really want to become rich and when you sit next to them, they are billionaires, who can say that? Those kinds of men then become very small.”
Mark: “The admiration then takes over. Tim has also been wearing such a big watch lately. Have you seen that?”
Tina finally: “No, I buy my jewelry at Etos, so I don’t know anything about clocks.”