Ruud de Wild reacts quite falsely to the public humiliation of Coen Swijnenberg and Sander Lantinga. The gentlemen are removed from the afternoon rush hour due to declining listening figures. “The rack is out!”
Coen Swijnenberg and Sander Lantinga are relegated for the first time in their careers. Due to declining listening figures, the gentlemen will be taken out of the afternoon rush in a few weeks and after the summer they will only be allowed to make radio together one day a week. Solo they get programs on less prominent broadcast moments.
Ruud is having fun
All quite painful, but Ruud de Wild has a good laugh. “I understand that they will stop. If the rack is out, that’s the only way. And, of course, the numbers have plummeted dramatically in the last year and a half. At Talpa I still miss vision and then you get this kind of misery,” he sneezes at RTL Boulevard.
Ruud was taken out of the 538 afternoon in 2015 due to the arrival of Coen and Sander. He switched to competitor NPO Radio 2 and when at one point he was bigger than his successors on 538, he shouted that from the rooftops everywhere for months. “He is especially very busy with us”, Coen reacted at one point.
Elderly
Coen only made their argument worse by suggesting that Ruud only attracts elderly listeners. “A lot of older people just listen to it. That program and that station and older people generally listen just a little longer. They just turn on the radio in the morning and listen all day.”
Sander then: “They turn it on on Sunday evening and wake up on Friday afternoon. When they wake up.”
And now Ruud takes the gentlemen back hard again.
fierce criticism
Ruud is not alone in his criticism of Coen and Sander. “They have lost something in terms of popularity,” says Telegraaf journalist Jordi Versteegden, for example. “They left in 2015 and then the story went for a long time that they were going for the big money and that has caused them some damage in terms of image.”
He continues at Telegraph TV: “Maybe that is also in the station they work for. Radio 538 has of course not been going well as a station lately and you can feel that in the atmosphere of such a radio program.”
Broom through 538
And Evert Sankrediets in Shownieuws is also not surprised about the Coen and Sander exit. “The listening figures of 538 have fallen somewhat in recent years. That actually happened as expected, because Edwin Evers announced his departure. That has indeed cost them that market leadership.”
“So the broom goes through it. If you hear the buzz of the past few weeks, there will be many more changes in radio land.”