Wilfred Genee and his colleagues see the ratings of Today Inside collapse after stretching the Friday broadcast. “We have not seen such a significant drop in a long time.”
Will the men of Today Inside follow Eva Jinek, who has been so criticized by them? She saw her viewing figures collapse when the channel management started to stretch her talk show to 1 hour and 45 minutes, and the Friday broadcast of VI also loses viewers now that the program has to fill an hour and a half.
VI in the elevator down
Tina Nijkamp, viewing figures expert and former channel boss of SBS 6, points to yesterday’s below-average VI score: 750 thousand viewers (16 percent market share). “Oh dear. Big drop for the second longer Today Inside. Last week 935 thousand, now 750 thousand and only in ninth place. We haven’t seen that at VI for a long time. How did that happen?”
There are two reasons, according to Tina. The first? “The starting time is 11 minutes earlier. 8:58 PM instead of 9:09 PM. And that means that KijkOnderzoek has included the longer teaser, including the (criticized) summary of the week, plus subsequent commercial break in the viewing figures. And that brings down the average.”
‘Ab not a good guest’
Virologist Ab Osterhaus is not an appealing guest either, thinks Tina. “Was Ab Osterhaus a good idea at the bar? Was it perhaps too much like an ordinary talk show with so many guests? Anyway: next week the summary of the week will be gone I think, and perhaps fewer guests.”
It also doesn’t help that the influx was so lousy: the rerun of Kom Een Man Bij De Dokter attracted only 298 thousand viewers immediately before. “Perhaps SBS 6 would be better off repeating Mr. Shorten Frank Visser to half an hour or else just broadcast it completely and then have VI start again at 9.30 pm?”
“Because VI’s profit half an hour longer doesn’t make up for the loss of market share of this half hour.”
Traitors too long?
There is increasing annoyance about the endless broadcasts on television. Especially at a time when we are used to short films on social media, TV bosses think it’s a good idea to make TV programs last very long. Media journalist Jef Willemsen is also annoyed by this in the case of De Verraders.
He writes: “To save costs, RTL 4 has been spreading one program over the entire evening for years. The breaking point now seems to have been reached with De Verraders where the breakfast scene swallows up all the time until the first commercial break and ends in a cliffhanger… This kind of willful procrastination and dawdling frustrates.”
De Traitors was number three on prime time yesterday with 1 million viewers (20 percent).
Viewing figures
The viewing figures of Friday, April 14, 2023 (SKO):
Top 15 | Market shares (18-24h, 6+) |
|---|---|
| 01. Journal 20:00 (NPO1) 1,678,000 | 01. NPO1 / 24.1% |
| 02. Cops Maastricht (NPO1) 1,547,000 | 02. RTL4 / 18.3% |
| 03. Two to twelve (NPO2) 1,216,000 | 03. NPO2 / 11.1% |
| 04. The Traitors (RTL4) 1,017,000 | 04. SBS6 / 10.4% |
| 05. Half past seven news (RTL4) 966,000 | 05. RTL5 / 4.4% |
| 06. Journal 18:00 (NPO1) 928,000 | 06.NET5 / 3.7% |
| 07. MAX Pub Quiz (NPO1) 876,000 | 07. NPO3 / 3.5% |
| 08. EenVandaag (NPO1) 813,000 | 08. Vero / 2.9% |
| 09. Today Inside (SBS6) 750,000 | 09.ESPN / 2.7% |
| 10. Conversation with Prime Minister (NPO1) 722,000 | 10. RTL8 / 2.7% |
| 11. RTL Boulevard (RTL4) 689,000 | 11. RTL7 / 2.1% |
| 12. Khalid & Sophie (NPO1) 623,000 | 12.TLC / 0.9% |
| 13. Beau (RTL4) 617,000 | 13. N.geog / 0.8% |
| 14. Op1 (NPO1) 616,000 | 14. Paramount / 0.8% |
| 15. Edition NL (RTL4) 611,000 | 15. RTLZ / 0.7% |
Market shares per channel group (18-24h, 6+) | More viewing figures at: |
| 01. Public Broadcasting 38.7% |  |
| 02. RTL Netherlands 28.4% | |
| 03. Talpa TV 17.5% |
Programs that did not make it to the top 15 include Hart van Nederland (524 thousand), De Geknipte Gast (511 thousand), Nieuwsuur (440 thousand), 112 Today (401 thousand) and Shownieuws (345 thousand).