Only important football matches – especially those of the Dutch national team– still score viewing figures that resemble those of a few decades ago. So itmakes sense that the DWDD -rel does not fascinate everyone, writes RoelofBouwman.
Roelof Bouwman (1965) is a historian and journalist. He writes weeklyabout politics, history and media.
After we were treated to revelations around earlier this year The Voice withLinda de Mol’s now ex-partner in an unflattering leading role, there was newslast week about TV presenter Matthijs van Nieuwkerk.
Story about ‘culture of fear’ DWDD in 2011 already in Private
Former employees of The world goes on ( DWDD ) collapsed de Volkskrant_from the school about his ‘tyrannical behavior’. This is said to have createda ‘culture of fear’ on the shop floor of the programme. A similar story wasalready in 2011 in weekly magazine _Privately but was then completely ignoredby other media.
Now there was commotion. ‘Matthijs van Nieuwkerk,’ wrote The Telegraph ,’Hilversum seems to have divided into two camps: celebrities who denounce itand people who show understanding’. In the first camp, football analyst Renévan der Gijp set the tone (‘If you enjoy humiliating people, then you’resick’), in the second, Reverend Gremdaat, Paul Haenen’s alter ego (‘People whoare brilliant in their work are often capricious and unpleasant in everydaylife’).
Especially on social media, it became clear that there is also a third campoutside Hilversum: of people who let it be known that they rarely or neverwatch an episode of The world goes on had seen and that the commotionsurrounding the ‘fallen sun king of the VARA’ could only moderately fascinatethem.
Used to be The world goes on a ratings gun? That’s relative
Wonderful, at first sight. Because The world goes on was an immenselypopular TV program between 2005 and 2020 and Van Nieuwkerk – it was hammeredinto us again and again last week – isn’t it a viewing figure gun of historicproportions?
There are, however, a few caveats to note. DWDD peaked in 2015, with anaverage of over 1.4 million viewers. A nice score, but compared to the talkshows of Mies Bouwman and Sonja Barend, for example, which regularly attractedbetween 6 and 8.5 million viewers in the eighties, it is not impressive.
Of course, there were fewer television networks back then. But also fewerDutch people. And let’s not pretend that the Dutch are flocking to Mies and_Sonya on Tuesday_ watched, because there was no Omroep Flevoland and no24Kitchen yet.
When it comes to the reduced reach of mass media, it’s almost always aboutprint media. Newspapers and magazines are said to be ‘dead trees’, prolongingtheir hopeless existence with the help of fewer and fewer readers.
But the ratings of our television heroes have plummeted at an even fasterrate. Many programs that are now at the top of the lists of the KijkOnderzoekFoundation would have been taken off the screen a generation and a half ago asflops. Only important football matches – especially those of the Dutchnational team – still score viewing figures that resemble those of a fewdecades ago.
Television is no longer really a ‘national’ medium
Television is no longer really a ‘national’ medium. And so it is logical thatTV riots no longer automatically have a national character. Let Matthijs vanNieuwkerk not be very sad about it.