SBS 6 star Martien Meiland and his family are calling it quits: they revealed yesterday on competitor RTL 4 that Chateau Meiland is coming to a fairly abrupt end. “They have already applied for a job at RTL!”
It is something that critics have been saying for years: how much more do the Meilandjes want to stage in order to be able to make another follow-up season of Chateau Meiland for SBS 6? Now they have also made up their own minds: their much-watched reality series will come to an end after the current season and the annual Christmas special. And that is still quite unexpected.
Unexpected
TV authority Tina Nijkamp finds it a surprise. “That is of course a shock for the Netherlands. It was unexpected. I also think it was unexpected for SBS 6,” she says in The Orange Summer. “I think SBS 6 and the producer already knew it, but I think it was unexpected that it came out tonight.”
The Meilandjes announced it to competitor RTL Boulevard and only then did SBS 6 rush with a message on the socials. They stood in front of the camera at Boulevard with a book in which they looked back on their TV fame. Do they really disappear from the spotlight? “I doubt whether that will be forever, I don’t think so.”
Limelight
Tina expects that the Meilandjes ultimately cannot do without publicity. “Maybe in two years they will come back again and they won’t be able to miss it limelight as it is called. It is of course also – and I’m not saying that’s why they do it – a useful way to renegotiate your position, isn’t it.”
What does she mean by that? “Well, because everyone wants them, because they still score mega. Still above a million viewers. That is still a big hit and has actually been all along. They are of course in the queue: Videoland, RTL 5, RTL 4, SBS 6, everyone wants them.”
‘Already applied!’
Studio guest Jack van Gelder thinks it is significant that the Meilandjes have announced their TV exit at RTL. “Of course, they have already applied for a job at RTL and Videoland, only to get that scoop at RTL and not at Shownieuws. I think that’s really ridiculous.”
Tina: “Yes, I also find it very remarkable and you also saw: SBS 6 only responded after that broadcast with a message on social media. If you release something so big, because it is of course a major program that also won the Televizier-Ring for SBS 6 (…), then you of course do it together in consultation. That clearly had not happened.”
Year or two
Private boss Evert Santegoeds emphasizes Show news that the Meilandjes are not really saying goodbye. “I think it will start to itch again next year.”
Celebrity photographer William Rutten: “Just a good break and then back at it with full courage.”
Is that correct? Martien himself in RTL Boulevard: “If in a year or two years’ time they come up with a different format and we all put our heads together again and sit around the table with a rosette and we think: gosh, what a nice idea, then we could just end up on TV with those faces every time.”
Door remains open
Tom Roedolf, the channel manager of SBS 6, hopes to pick up the thread again at some point. “The Meilandjes are the most special family in the Netherlands and we can only understand and respect that they now want to stop having cameras in their lives after so many successful years.”
He continues in a statement to Shownieuws: “The door always remains open for us and fortunately I have now understood through our people that the door is not definitively closed for them either.”