Frans Klein was “proud of that mentality”, because it was “top sport on the cutting edge”. The way in which the then media director of VARA whitewashed the human price of success in 2010 in an article in New Rev made little sense at the time. When the quotes were brought up twelve years later in the revelations about the toxic work culture at The world goes on, they retroactively illustrated how he had looked away. The show, with ratings gun Matthijs van Nieuwkerk, had to go on.
When de Volkskrant started its DWDD investigation last year, the newspaper wanted to uncover something systemic. And systemic in this case meant: what did people know at management level at the VARA, later BNNVARA, and what did they do about it? Until 2014, halfway through the talk show’s run, Klein was the man who could have done something about it. His role in the drama, more than Van Nieuwkerk’s tyrannical outbursts, was the core of the article. “I can only regret,” he said looking back. “Otherwise I would have to be locked up.”
After the eight months he was inactive since then, the NPO announced on Friday that Klein will no longer be returning as director of Video. According to sources, he would General Journal to work at Talpa (SBS6, Veronica, Net5) of John de Mol.
There was no turning back for Klein. Due to the increased scope of its investigation, the committee led by former minister Martin van Rijn, which was set up after the Volkskrant article about DWDD, postponed the presentation of its report until after the summer. Klein apparently did not want to wait for an opinion on his role in the matter. He did not respond to NRC’s attempts to contact.
As Director of Video, Klein had final responsibility for the spending of half a billion government funds on TV programmes. Broadcasters submit programs, the NPO shoots them down – or gives the green light, and then the subsidy tap opens. That requires a spotless reputation.
Restaurants
He had already raised Klein’s appeal to progressive insight when NRC revealed that he and his brother had a dubious tax arrangement at the family’s Thai restaurants. “Call it naive,” he said. He did it for his “little brother”. He only withdrew from the construction in 2016, while it had been known for years that the advisers behind this ‘English route’ had been dealt with by the FIOD.
The integrity committee of the public broadcaster, CIPO, ruled that Klein had met the requirements by reporting ownership of a restaurant as an additional job. And the Supervisory Board of the NPO could suffice with an opinion on the nature of the private activities. The public broadcaster did not have to know about the underlying tax structure and Klein therefore did not have to report it. He could go on.
The success of DWDD and Paul de Leeuw’s late-night shows catapulted former radio director Klein to Director Video in 2014, the most important substantive management position at the NPO. In 2020 he was awarded by trade magazine Broadcast Magazine was named Broadcaster of the Year, for – in summary – the impact that the NPO still has while the commercial broadcasters lost market share. He was honored for, among other things, setting up the broadcast-transcending talk show On 1which turned out to be a success formula in that corona year.
Other times
The cracks in his reputation widened. Two years ago, this dissatisfaction culminated in a round of cutbacks in which the history program Other Times (NTR/VPRO) had to sacrifice budget and apparently lost out to superficial formats. The NPO stated that the VPRO had itself put forward Other Times for a discount. Then VPRO director Lennart van der Meulen said that it was with “a gun to the chest”. In a double interview with NPO2 network manager Gijs van Beuzekom in NRC, Klein could barely suppress his anger. “It hits us when you say: ‘There are the ratings fetishists again’.”
His enemies tumbled over each other in an investigative series of Follow the Money, with examples in which Klein and the channel managers – apparently outside broadcasters – sounded out program presenters or pushed through formats and presented broadcasters with a fait accompli. Yes, Klein acknowledged, he talked to a lot of people. “If proposals come in, we put them in the broadcasting schedule together with the broadcasters, based on annual plans approved by everyone. How can you say: he decides everything?” Explanation for all the resentment was expressed by then NPO board chairman Shula Rijxman: “We deal in rejections of program proposals.”
Climbed up
In conversation with de Volkskrant for the DWDD article last November, Klein, who was born in Hilversum, said that he had “not always been a great Frans Klein”. “I was also a little Frans Klein”, climbed up in a tough VARA culture. In other words, how can you recognize a culture of fear as such if you yourself have been brought up in it? “I’m not proud of it, I don’t think it’s pretty – but that work culture was so hard in many places in Hilversum.”
Under the leadership of board chairman Frederieke Leeflang, the NPO is now going in a different direction. The NPO announced in a short press release on Friday evening that Klein is saying goodbye “at a time when the NPO has embarked on a new path”, a strategy that “we are developing together with the broadcasters”. A spokesman declined to say more about this. The appointment procedure for a new video director has been initiated. Until then, Remco van Leen and Jojanneke Doorn will fulfill Klein’s tasks on an interim basis.