Viola Holt always boasts that she was once asked to present RTL Boulevard, but how realistic was that scenario really? “The viewer panel was disgusted by her.”
She starts about it in every interview: according to Viola Holt, RTL actually wanted her as the very first presenter of RTL Boulevard. She refused because she had just started her restaurant in Mexico, she says. But doesn’t the follower of Willem Engel make it all a bit more beautiful than it is?
Mismatch Margaret
May-Britt Mobach, who was involved in the program as editor-in-chief in the early days of RTL Boulevard, states that Margriet van der Linden was the first choice for the presentation. “First, Margriet van der Linden would present it. I was in the first brainstorming period with Margriet and another very nice Volkskrant journalist,” she says.
She continues in the podcast Daphne on Thursday: “Margriet would really present it, but that was such a mismatch with Albert that it was cancelled. Then Beau came and everything fell into place.”
And what about Viola?
Is she forgetting Viola? That was supposedly the most coveted option for the presentation, wasn’t it? Unfortunately, Viola: absolutely not. “Viola Holt was also briefly mentioned as a presenter. Then we did a target group measurement with the public and then you have such a zero line. Then you have +1 and +2 and -1 and -2,” said May-Britt.
She continues: “As soon as Beau just announced her name in an item, it went down to -2. haha. So then… Yes, terrible. Poor Viola. That was all tested, yes.”
spiritual father
Finally: who is actually the spiritual father of RTL Boulevard? “People sometimes pat themselves on the chest with: ‘I came up with it’, but I don’t think anyone ‘made it up’. I think it originated.”
She continues: “The director then decided to do the tune behind it. And Leo van der Goot said that the presenter had to say his name ‘because that is so delicious American’ and we thought that was very strange at the time. Now it’s all very normal.”
