Media director Willemijn Francissen will leave broadcaster NTR on February 1, six months earlier than expected. NTR reported this in an internal email to all employees on Thursday. Francissen is seen by some NTR employees as a major instigator of the unsafe work culture at the broadcaster. She has been under internal fire since the publication of the critical report by the Van Rijn committee last year about inappropriate behavior at the public broadcaster.
Francissen temporarily resigned in July last year to make room for an independent investigation into the work culture at NTR. The supervisory board initiated this investigation because the Van Rijn report had led to a lot of internal unrest among employees. But opinions within the broadcaster were divided. Francissen also had supporters, especially among the editors-in-chief, who had difficulty with the research. They felt that Francissen was the victim of a ‘witch hunt’ by some resentful former employees and urged her return.
‘Reports of a serious nature’
This internal lobby was successful. A few months later, the NTR supervisory board reported that Francissen would return temporarily on December 1, before she would permanently leave the broadcaster on September 1, 2025. But just before her return on December 1, the entire supervisory board suddenly resigned after the external investigation agency reported in an interim report “a significant number of reports of a serious nature” about Francissen. The council concluded that it had “insufficient insight into what was and is still going on within NTR.”
Francissen’s opponents celebrated this unexpected decision as a victory. Because a temporary return until the summer was ruled out, the broadcaster and Francissen started negotiating a settlement agreement to prematurely terminate the media director’s contract, sources within the broadcaster say. It is not clear how much money she received.