Peter van der Vorst, the television boss of RTL, confirms the arrival of Matthijs van Nieuwkerk. He does not want to wait for the report on the working atmosphere at the NPO. “That has now been postponed again.”
Matthijs van Nieuwkerk has now been in prison for a year because the Volkskrant published an article about the terrible working atmosphere at De Wereld Draait Door. The NPO announced an investigation, but at one point it became so broad – NPO-wide – that there is still no report. And Matthijs just dangles.
Dangling Matthijs
RTL is now making its move: they will bring Matthijs in as of January 1, as leaked through the media last night. And this has now been confirmed in a press release. “A publication by De Volkskrant at the end of last year about the working conditions behind the scenes of DWDD brought his TV work to an abrupt halt,” it reads.
RTL continues: “Van Nieuwkerk has fully cooperated with the independent Investigative Committee for Conduct and Culture of Broadcasters (OGCO), which has since investigated the working conditions at the entire public broadcaster. This report would first be released around the summer of 2023 and later in the fourth quarter of this year.”
‘He can return to TV’
However, its presentation has recently been postponed again, now to January 2024. It has been nice, Peter thinks. He says: “Matthijs has gone through a period of reflection and has spoken openly and honestly about it in NRC. Now that those involved have been heard and the OGCO investigation is as good as complete, we believe that Matthijs can return to television in the new year.”
He continues: “Because the open and good discussions with him have already led to an agreement, and the presentation of the research has recently been postponed again, we do not want to wait any longer to announce it.”
The way is clear
Since the beginning of this year, RTL has been part of the Media Pact Respectful Collaboration, which stands for a safe working environment in the media world, through prevention, awareness and leadership. The pact also stands for starting a conversation, sharing dilemmas and learning from each other, says Peter.
The television boss: “That’s what we did, and that’s what Matthijs did too: start the conversation and learn from what went wrong. As far as we are concerned, this clears the way for a return to TV. And we are happy that Matthijs chose the RTL stage for this.”
What does Matthijs say?
Matthijs also says something in the press release, namely: “The outstretched hand of RTL was cordial and immediately very substantive. They knew what they wanted to ask me for in the coming years and I was very happy with that. To start with, I get the chance to end the week on Sunday evening.”
“I will of course keep to myself how exactly I will do that, but in any case there is a lot of music. We also talk about a number of other programs for RTL, but certainly also for Videoland. That is a wonderful stage for reports or portraits, for example. In short, from January we will start a brand new adventure together in full flight. I missed work.”
Four years
Matthijs and RTL have entered into a ‘collaboration agreement’ for four years. The new Sunday evening program can be seen on RTL 4 from Sunday April 21 and is produced by MediaLane.
In addition to his Sunday evening show, he will also make other reportage and interview programs for both RTL 4 and RTL’s streaming platform Videoland.