Tina Nijkamp was still the channel boss of SBS 6 when John de Mol was on the Voice of Holland with his format. He then also offered it to her. “But I didn’t take it.”
It is autumn of 2010 when The Voice of Holland premiered on RTL 4. Nowadays John de Mol owns SBS 6, but at the time he was dependent on the favor of the broadcaster of our country. The MediaMamlejardair was very busy with his TV idea The Voice of Holland, and he also offered it to Tina Nijkamp.
140,000 euros
Tina is now known as the viewing figure authority of our country, but then she was still a channel boss of SBS 6. Why did she refuse? Because then she was already broadcasting the talent show Popstars and that was much cheaper. “We made that in the house, because then we had it cheap and we didn’t have to pay fee’s to millionaires to make them even richer.”
She continues in the podcast The Media Week: “We made that at home and that was 140,000 euros per episode. For comparison: Holland’s Got Talent, which we also had, already cost 250,000 euros per episode. A ton per episode saved that. That was a reason for us to be very happy with that, because it scored and it was cheap.”
Set
At that time, John de Mol came up with The Voice. “My boss Eric van Stade and I went to Laren about once in a year and a half (where John lives, ed.). Normally everyone always comes to pitch with us, but Eric then said to me:” We have to go to Laren again. “
Ridiculous, Tina thought so. “Then I said to Eric, because I don’t like driving and so on,” Why do we always have to go to him? ” “Yes,” that’s how it works with John de Mol. ” We came there in that attic and what was very strange: he always started pitching something of 45 ideas. ”
Eat and drink
Normally a producer always pitches three or four ideas, says Tina. “Then an hour is over and I was always done with it again. We already knew after one sentence if we wanted it. But with John de Mol we were there and I were there, we all got food and drink, that was well cared for and then he started pitching 45 to 54 ideas in an hour.”
And then also came The Voice. “There was no picture yet. It was a kind of messy, barely written idea. The chair wasn’t in it yet. It was a paper form. I still have it somewhere, it said: they are blind auditions. But we already had blind auditions at Popstars. That was not new at all.”
Under a sheet
Popstars had the Mystery Popstars section, in which famous Dutch people sang a song disguised. “It was dressed under a sheet. We already had it. We said,” Did you not be inspired by us? ” “No, no, no, not at all!” We actually didn’t think it was that original at all. “
“For this show he wanted I believe I have four tons per episode. I just had three episodes from Popstars for that. So we couldn’t afford it either.”
Ready to sell
Why did Tina have so little budget at its disposal? “We were made ready for sale. We had to do things for very few budget. We were at then at Prosieben. We immediately rejected it, because we thought: this looks too much like Popstars and it is three times as expensive, so why should we do it?”
Who eventually got the SBS 6 -ready SBS 6 in their hands? “John bought that with Sanoma. I believe for 1.2 billion euros.”
And so the circle was round again.