Linda de Mol’s agony is over. After four weeks, the repeat series of her police series Deep Grounds has ended and the presenter is slowly climbing out of the viewing figures of her career.
Repeating the four-part police series Deep Grounds has led to devastating viewing figures for Linda de Mol this summer. Two weeks ago, she even set the worst score in the 27-year existence of SBS 6. Diepe Gronden then snagged at 32 thousand viewers, an astonishingly low number.
Linda for shelter
Summer or no summer, rerun or no rerun, Linda’s prime-time audience draws less than a random rerun of Scooby Doo on Cartoon Network is a huge embarrassment. In fact, it is enormously damaging to her image, which is already under pressure because of her insider knowledge in the Voice abuse scandal.
The fact that SBS 6 decided to just keep the repeats of Deep Grounds on the channel led to speculation whether there might be a fight between John and Linda de Mol. Criticism was also heard from his own home: Wilfred Genee made a nice embarrassment to Linda last week by waiting on live television for the viewers chased away by Linda.
54 thousand viewers
The Deep Grounds repeat series came to an end yesterday with 54 thousand viewers and a market share of 1.1 percent. The program before it, Shownieuws, scored 5 percent of the market share and the program after it, Today Inside, even 15 percent. The first three episodes scored 87, 32 and 40 thousand viewers.
RTL Boulevard reporter Joost Maiburg calls Linda’s repeat horror a ‘drama’ and a ‘programming error’ today. And viewing figures expert Tina Nijkamp says: “Linda de Mol’s TV nightmare is finally over.”
Manager pissed off
Jordi Versteegden, media journalist for De Telegraaf, has asked Linda for a response. “I’ve had contact with Linda’s manager, Xenia Kasper, and what she thinks of Deep Grounds scoring so low. I don’t think he was very happy with my question, but hey, I’m just doing my job,” he says in a podcast of the newspaper.
Linda’s manager was pretty pissed off. “She says: ‘Repetitions in the summer are not all that important.’ Then I think: yes, hello, but you have to protect the image of your television queen, right? I can’t imagine in any way that you don’t think this is a great pity. That your Linda de Mol only has 32,000 viewers.”
big bite
Jordi doesn’t understand SBS 6. “Apparently they just had a gap to fill in the programming, but to do that with a series that has already flopped… I think that’s a strange move.”
Colleague Marco Weijers: “You can conclude that the De Mol brand has been badly hit by all those affairs lately. It’s going to be really painful now.”
And hostess Daphne van Rossem: “Yes, because this was actually a bit of a prelude to coming back.”
Viewing figures
The viewing figures of Thursday 25 August 2022 (SKO):
Top 15 | Market shares (18-24h, 6+) |
|---|---|
| 01. The Smartest Human (NPO2) 1,716,000 | 01. NPO1/23.1% |
| 02. News 20:00 (NPO1) 1,399,000 | 02. RTL4 / 15.8% |
| 03. Thinking of Holland (NPO1) 1,225,000 | 03. NPO2 / 12.7% |
| 04. News 18:00 (NPO1) 923,000 | 04. RTL7 / 11.9% |
| 05. Half past seven news (RTL4) 914.000 | 05. SBS6/7.8% |
| 06. Op1 (NPO1) 872.000 | 06. RTL5 / 3.9% |
| 07. Best Singers (NPO1) 839.000 | 07. Vero / 3.5% |
| 08. B&B Full of Love (RTL4) 816.000 | 08. RTL8 / 3.5% |
| 09. RTL Boulevard (RTL4) 717,000 | 09. NPO3 / 3.4% |
| 10. EenVandaag (NPO1) 704.000 | 10.NET5/3.1% |
| 11. I Know All About Junior (RTL4) 695,000 | 11. TLC / 1.1% |
| 12. Twente – Fiorentina (RTL7) 619.000 | 12. Paramount / 0.8% |
| 13. Today Inside (SBS6) 619,000 | 13. RTLZ / 0.7% |
| 14. News Hour (NPO2) 602,000 | 14. BBC / 0.7% |
| 15. Journal Late (NPO1) 541,000 | 15. N.geog / 0.6% |
Market shares per channel group (18-24h, 6+) | More viewing figures at: |
| 01. Public Broadcasting 39.2% |  |
| 02. RTL Netherlands 35.9% | |
| 03. Talpa TV 15.0% |
Programs that did not make the top 15 include Editie NL (531 thousand), Hart van Nederland (453 thousand), Shownieuws (423 thousand), 112 Today (405 thousand) and Shownieuws Zomereitie (172 thousand).
