Tijs van den Brink has suddenly not been seen in the Friday broadcast of Op1 for a year, while until recently he formed a duo with Sven Kockelmann. “Is there an argument?”
The duo of Sven Kockelmann and Tijs van den Brink has suddenly come to an end on their talk show Op1. They did the political broadcasts together on Fridays, but Sven now makes them on his own. “This is a VERY strange and vague story. Did Sven and Tijs get into a fight?” TV authority Tina Nijkamp wonders analysis channel.
‘Looks like a disagreement’
According to Tina, it is remarkable that Sven now presents completely on his own. “Why one person on Friday? The format is two presenters, right? The official spokesperson will probably be: Tijs’s agenda was too busy blah blah, but this looks like a disagreement. Very strange,” she says.
Media critic Victor Vlam also finds it very bizarre, he says in the podcast The Communicados. “Nothing has been communicated about this to the outside world and that is surprising, because in the past a major press release announced that Sven and Thijs would form a duo for the political Friday.”
Something with budget
A spokesperson for Tijs’ broadcaster EO tells Tina: “Because of the elections, we have received an additional budget for the autumn to create a political Friday for Op1. WNL and EO did this together and completed it at the end of December 2023. The elections are over, the formation is underway and the urgency around politics is now different.”
But isn’t the Friday broadcast still politically biased? “Op1 is a profiled journalistic talk show and if there is a current reason to talk about politics, there is room for that on all days. If WNL still makes a political broadcast on Friday, that is up to them.”
‘Not much wiser’
According to Tijs himself, a ‘new division’ has been made at Op1, with EO, WNL and MAX dividing the broadcasts differently. Victor: “To be very honest, that doesn’t really make me any wiser, because it still raises the question: yes, but why isn’t the layout made in such a way that you present together?”
What does Victor think is going on? “I honestly just don’t think the experiment was successful. These are people who also have a very similar style. They are both quite dominant and I think they just felt that they were too much of the same, did not complement each other enough and sometimes got in each other’s way.”
Not fair
Why don’t they just say that honestly? “I understand that they are not going to communicate this to the outside world. You normally don’t do that. You try to put a bit of a positive spin on it. But as a viewer of that program, that seems like a very logical explanation to me.”