A shock wave is going through TV land now that the historically poorly viewed TV evenings are following each other in rapid succession. Is the TV apocalypse near? Has the medium’s dreaded demise arrived?
Tina Nijkamp, the country’s most famous viewing figures connoisseur, was completely shocked this morning. She has been writing about the decline in linear viewing figures for some time, but traditional television is currently scoring very badly. The audience share, the percentage of Dutch people aged six and older who watch TV, has been extremely low in recent evenings.
Another record low
According to Tina, it was already doom and gloom on Friday evening with only 15.8 percent of the Dutch watching TV. The winner on prime time, Het Onbekende, managed to appeal to 3 percent of the Dutch. “Never before has TV been watched so little,” she wrote on her analysis channel. “The previous record low was on May 27 (16.1 percent).
The audience share fell even further yesterday, on Saturday evening, to only 13.9 percent. Tina has really never seen this. “Even the eight o’clock news barely exceeds a million.”
“Everything flops!”
Everything really flops on such an evening, Tina sees. NPO 1’s Zing scored 584 thousand viewers, RTL 4’s Blow Up had 359 thousand viewers and SBS 6’s Hunting season reached 407 thousand. “What a drama scores all. Are these low figures just due to the warm weather or is it also related to the supply? Yes, that too.”
She continues: “Last week we also saw that the Netherlands did want to turn on the TV before the match between the Netherlands and Croatia: almost 1.9 million people watched it. And yesterday we saw that a REPEAT of Ik Departure is found more interesting than the above new programs.”
Zero viewers
It’s all very painful, says Tina. “In addition to the low record audience share, there was also a low point in the history of NPO 3. At 8:19 p.m., the channel had 0 viewers.”
So many people looked at the Socutera charity block at that time. “Never before in our TV history has the NPO scored a viewing figure of 0 at that time. Sad but true. And it is indeed not an ordinary program but a Socutera broadcast, but still.”
Viewing figures
The viewing figures of Saturday, June 17, 2023 (SKO):
Top 15 | Market shares (18-24h, 6+) |
|---|---|
| 01. Journal 20:00 (NPO1) 1,070,000 | 01. NPO1 / 23.5% |
| 02. Journal 18:00 (NPO1) 707,000 | 02. RTL4 / 13.2% |
| 03. I’m Departing (NPO1) 701,000 | 03. SBS6 / 12.9% |
| 04. EenVandaag (NPO1) 610,000 | 04. NPO2 / 7.9% |
| 05. Sing (NPO1) 584,000 | 05. NPO3 / 4.3% |
| 06. Heart of the Netherlands (SBS6) 582,000 | 06. RTL7 / 4.0% |
| 07. Half past seven news (RTL4) 501,000 | 07. RTL8 / 2.9% |
| 08. Best Viewers (RTL4) 474,000 | 08. RTL5 / 2.8% |
| 09. Show News (SBS6) 465,000 | 09. Vero / 2.6% |
| 10. Sports News (NPO1) 454,000 | 10.NET5/2.0% |
| 11. Studio Sport (NPO1) 411,000 | 11. Ziggo / 1.9% |
| 12. The Hunting Season (SBS6) 407,000 | 12.BBC / 1.7% |
| 13. Blow Up (RTL4) 359,000 | 13.TLC / 1.3% |
| 14. Maarten van der Weijden (NPO1) 338,000 | 14. Paramount / 1.3% |
| 15. What an Invention (SBS6) 333,000 | 15. Discov / 1.2% |
Market shares per channel group (18-24h, 6+) | More viewing figures at: |
| 01. Public Broadcasting 35.7% | |
| 02. RTL Netherlands 23.9% | |
| 03. Talpa TV 18.3% |
Programs that did not make the top 15 include RTL Boulevard (326 thousand), Nieuwsuur (304 thousand), Upside Down of the Americas (263 thousand) and Pinkpop (196 thousand).