Lingo is temporarily off the tube, but a new game has replaced it: Lettrix. The first episode did poorly yesterday. “This is too chilly for dinnertime.”
The arrival of the new TV game Lettrix, presented alternately by Dyantha Brooks and Patrick Martens, is a drama for Jan Versteegh. His program Lingo seems to have been traded in, because that game is no longer in the schedules after the summer. And that means a major blow to his already ailing TV career.
Greenscreen
How Lettrix got started? Not good. The premiere managed to entertain 111 thousand viewers on SBS 6 at six o’clock last night, good for a market share of 3.8 percent. Unfortunately, both the program before (the early edition of Hart van Nederland) and the program after (De Alleskunner) captivated more viewers.
Jef Willemsen, media journalist for De Telegraaf, among others, thinks that the program lacks warmth. The show is being recorded for a huge green screen, just like Show News. The decor you see was mounted after the recordings, making everything look very virtual. “The first Lettrix takes some getting used to…”, he tweets.
Cold illusion
It’s just not fun, says Jef. “The decor is one big, computer-generated cold illusion, while you would expect cosy, human warmth from word games around dinnertime. Even the contagious one can do that smile of the unsinkable Patty Brard do nothing about it.”
TV viewer Lianne is also not very enthusiastic. She tweets: “It’s nice that Patrick has a job again. But this is just Lingo, isn’t it?”
Disappointment
Viewing figure professor Tina Nijkamp criticizes her analysis channel that the commercial target group also scored poorly. “Wow, what a disappointment for Dyantha Brooks and Patrick Martens. And how painful that it also scores a third less than last week’s cheap purchase Dream House in the Countryside.”
She thinks it’s not going to get better. “There is a small chance that Lettrix will become a big hit in the viewing figures in the coming weeks. After all, a good start is half the work.”