Patrick Kicken: The last year of the Top 2000

[BLOG] The ballot boxes are open. The biggest promotion spectacle of the Dutch Public Broadcasting comes to life: The Top 2000 on NPO Radio 2. Nothing is too crazy, everything is allowed. TV programs, commercials, the whole pot of public money has to be finished before the end of the year. But the listener gets a nice gift in return, between Christmas and New Year’s Eve. As discussed earlier here: star disc jockey Rob Stenders is not participating this year. But there are more disturbances. Beginning of the end?

I had to laugh when I saw this message appear yesterday, even on NOS Teletext: the NPO Radio 2 Top 2000 starts eight hours earlier this year, so that we can occasionally show an album version or a longer version of a song. to hear. Yeah right. Of course you do that because previously songs were cut off or skipped because the presenter or deejay in question considers himself more important than the music. Presenting a hit list is a craft, you have to be able to do that. And if I pick up the list of the presenters of the Top 2000 this year, it is going to be a lot of fumbling at important hours.

00.00 – 02.00 am Jeroen van Inkel (BNN / VARA)
2am – 4am Frank van ‘t Hof (BNN / VARA)
4 a.m. – 6 a.m. Giel Beelen (BNN / VARA)
6am – 8am Carolien Borgers (WNL / AVRO / TROS)
8 a.m. – 10 a.m. Jan-Willem Roodbeen and Jeroen Kijk in de Vegte (BNN / VARA)
10.00 am – 12.00 pm Bart Arens (AVRO / TROS)
12 noon – 2 pm Gijs Staverman (KRO / NCRV)
2 pm – 4 pm Annemieke Schollaardt (AVRO / TROS)
4 – 6 PM Ruud de Wild (KRO / NCRV)
6:00 PM – 8:00 PM Wouter van der Goes (KRO / NCRV)
8:00 PM – 10:00 PM Emmely de Wilt (KRO / NCRV)
10 pm – midnight Paul Rabbering (AVRO / TROS)

The broadcasters can all breathe safely again: four times BNN / VARA, four times KRO / NCRV, four times AVRO / TROS. Powned needs to cut back. The EO does something different at Christmas.

NPO chief boss Jurre Bosman is assured of his Christmas bonus, because diversity has been thought of. All I miss is a transgender and a bipolar non-binary ‘it’ during the list. But for a swinging, well-listenable hit list you just need tight disc jockeys. That Stenders is not there, after the debacle last year, is understandable. He did not want to participate last year, but when he heard that Annemieke was going to do it, he quickly said yes. But where is someone like Rick van Velthuysen? He is suddenly not allowed to participate, with his 60 years of radio experience. You could also have used Corné Klijn, who also knows how to set the pace.

I always thought it was the best moment of the year, presenting the Top 1000 of All Time on Radio Veronica. You just knew that there were a lot of extra people listening, you didn’t do much in between, but you made sure that what you did in between had an impact. That is by the way not read from Wikipedia for the umpteenth time which album it is, who played the bass guitar and that Eternal Flame from The Bangles was sung naked. Fortunately, we do not have to listen to the bumbling of pop professor Leo Blokhuis again this year. The man knows well about music, but not about radio making.

Van Inkel should of course have had you rammed at Stenders’ place, not during off-peak hours. But maybe I think too much from what a hit list should sound like: fast, tight, fast tempo and keeping the music alive. If you still want to add atmosphere creators, then choose the crowd favorite Stefan Stasse: not in the line-up this year either. Yes, he likes a drink, but people are used to listening to drunk relatives at Christmas. Research has even shown him to be the most appreciated Top 2000 jock. The tickets for his time at the Top 2000 café were not to be won.

Why do I think this could be the last year of the Top 2000? Various reasons. They are known at NPO Radio for skilfully killing their successful songs. Think of the extremely successful Glass House of 3FM, which also had to be changed if necessary. This is actually no different for the Top 2000. There have been votes to have the event take place in the summer. Or move the entire hit list to 3FM, ‘because that channel needs it so badly’. Furthermore, there have been voices among jocks and management for years that it is now time for something different, support for the Top 2000 is declining internally. It would cost them 50% market share those days. One in two Dutch radio listeners tunes in to the market leader between Christmas and New Year’s Eve! At Veronica we had the saying in those days ‘you can just as well turn off our channels’.

It is also rumored that NPO chief Indian Bosman is not at all happy with such an enormously scoring, market-shifting marketing vehicle called the Top 2000. It plays into the hands of critics like Erik de Zwart who rightly call out against The Hague that this is market distortion because much too much. commercial. Your commercial opponents compete with public money. As if a subsidized restaurant suddenly starts selling hamburgers next to McDonald’s. But if you mess around with the programming because you can present yourself in such a varied way in political The Hague, that is of course also a harbinger of bad: just put people who can do that best in the best place. A cabaret performer early morning with a hit list? ‘Oh, how lovely, here is that cute Beatles song on number 1764! Do you know what they call The Beatles in France by the way? Les Beatles! Hihihi ‘.

You can safely explain that Stenders is not there as an omen that he will soon no longer be heard at the NPO but at Talpa radio. Not only with his podcasts but also with the Platenbonanza. The only move they can make in the short term at Radio Veronica and Talpa to get things going a bit and save the job of radio boss Marc Adriani. The success of the Top 2000 was always the atmosphere around it, all together. Without or with little audience will be quite a loss. Wondering if the list, with a mix of presenters and disc jockeys, is not going to become a mishmash or patchwork quilt that gives you the feeling that you are listening to a different radio station every two hours. The public and the café is and was the connecting factor.

Patrick kicking

–