Today Inside pays a thousand euros to the celebrities who take a seat at the talk show table in the evening. Exaggerated, critics say. “That explains a few things. What a sick system.”
Angela de Jong recently opened up about the fees that talk shows pay to their guests. She already revealed at the time that you get ‘a substantial amount’ at Today Inside, but then kept in the middle of what exactly you get paid there as a table guest. She is now making that disclosure in the NRC Handelsblad.
thousand euros
According to Angela, the guest at the table receives a wage of one thousand euros. “Today Inside pays a thousand euros at a time. Quite a nice amount. But I have a good salary at the AD. So I’ll have them donate that to charity.”
A thousand euros for an hour on television is of course not cat piss. It is therefore very important for the guests of the program that they are invited more often. And for that they have to make some spicy statements with which the headlines be met.
sick system
Kim van Keken, investigative journalist, finds it unbelievable. “Wow, a thousand euros at a time, to spew your opinion as a Dutch celebrity, that explains a few things. What a sick system,” she tweeted.
She’s pretty pissed about it. “A thousand euros at a time is really a lot of money. All those programs compete against each other, fishing from the same pond. Moreover, the question is how independent you are then.”
Columnist Jan Dijkgraaf is not surprised, however. “Every now and then I think: Kim lives under a rock. Even I got 500 at a time at WNL.”
Kim annoyed: “So at the public broadcaster.”
Tsunami of opinions
Story boss Guido den Aantrekker: “What do you think is wrong about this, Kim?”
Kim is annoyed that people are being paid for random opinions, and not for expertise. She answers Guido as follows: “That people in permanent employment add these kinds of amounts that are certainly not only offered by VI. This is often not even expertise, but mainly opinions. And we get lost in the opinions.”
Kudos to Angela
Guido: “As long as you don’t adjust your opinion as an expert to a fee, I don’t think it’s an issue. I have never heard Angela speak differently with/without payment. And opinions can be journalistically loaded. In her case for AD good (free) PR. I don’t really understand the ‘sickness’.”
Kim then hands out kudos to Angela. “At least Angela is paying it out to a good cause. But if it’s good PR for your newspaper, then why receive (a lot of) money. She doesn’t, but many do.”
chat shows
Guido: “You should see it as a compensation that someone in (valuable) free time represents his/her company late at night, and also has to be ‘on’, has to be very alert. She can’t do it either and stay at home on the two-seater, like many others.”
Kim: “A thousand euros is not a ‘compensation’. And again this is not about De Jong or VI, this is about a circuit of chat shows that compete against each other and pay semi-BN people who are often allowed to sleep in for a morning after they have done PR from their boss.”
The Twitter discussion about the high talk show rewards:
