[BLOG] It is the showpiece of the NPO. And all NPO Radio 2 jocks are more than happy to participate. Because hey, you’re back on TV with your face. It is for the station that wonderful listening time extender and marketing machine that they can enjoy so much and can even emit a beep in the coming months and they are still in the top three of the listening figures. This unfair competition (NPO stands for Public Broadcasting) with state subsidies towards all parties that have to fight hard has annoyed me for decades, but this edition our overpaid civil servants made a big mess of it.
I can understand that it is not easy to make something of it without an audience in such a Top 2000 cafe. But do it in an understated version. Everyone is in lockdown, we are not allowed to do anything and it is better not to do things than to do things halfway. I must confess that I could never watch it for more than fifteen minutes, those open doors TV from that cafe, but what I saw there I was almost disgusted. Giel Beelen sipping on a bottle of red wine at UB40’s Red Red Wine. Jeroen van Inkel and the aforementioned with an INFLATABLE GUITAR during a guitar solo. Rick van Velthuysen who is going to toast against a computer monitor. Folks, hundreds of thousands if not a million euros are being put into this… and then this is what you come up with? I understand that Staverman has called in sick these last few days, I would not want to do this of my own free will. Just let them make radio man, create a beautiful theater in the mind of the listener. This destroys the magic of radio. And that so that all those superfluous managers can say in a board meeting ‘look at those viewing figures of this NPO image channel! And the video streams are also going through the roof.” How well we are doing!
What are those disc jockeys going to do while the music is running, Kicken? Just sit on their lazy ass and wait for them to say ‘this was number 1200’? How about just concentrating on your lyrics and making something special out of it, instead of saying Alanis Morissette is from Canada and Eternal Flame from The Bangles was sung naked. And no, it doesn’t have to look like the first years of ‘watch radio’, but what is made of it now is just local broadcasting level. They looked like a couple of drunk guys who had run away from the Christmas drink ‘and just sat down and acted on instinct’ with all kinds of articles from the party shop. Can it have a little class sometimes? And that Top 2000 cafe was fun because you saw how much fun the audience had in all the music, led by the deejay. I don’t need to see cheap plays with carnival items, performed by a B artist who wouldn’t invite you to a children’s party, even if you got money on the side. And all that in an EMPTY CAFE. No matter how many lamps and screens full of vague types you hang, it doesn’t look good, has no atmosphere and is not worth looking at. Although our King Willem-Alexander is standing there, on his own.
Also that countdown moment, just before twelve on NPO 1, have you seen that too? A lot of bluster, hyped stuff, with all kinds of screens mixed up, Wout and Frank fighting over the microphone like two panting deer. Herman de Schermman with his cynical tone who is acting excitedly. With the number one of the Top 2000, Bohemian Rhapsody IN THE BACKGROUND THROUGH IT! Young young. Just do another countdown. Or simply broadcast the clip of the number 1. The old adage ‘shoemaker stick to your last’ comes in handy here: radio makers are not TV makers! Know what you’re good at and do that, know what you can’t and don’t! Would this kind of legendary bad television also be evaluated afterwards or do we not do that at the NPO? This was really just because those three are so excited to be on TV. Just ask people who can wear it, Paul de Leeuw if necessary. I understand that psychological need of most deejays to be seen as well as being heard, but what good is that to us as viewers/listeners?
What also irritates me more and more is how the Top 2000 is claimed as an invention of the NPO. Which is of course nonsense, Veronica has been doing and did the Top 1000 for years. It is ridiculous that they are doing the same thing as almost all commercial channels in the Netherlands, a public broadcaster should -correctly- say: we are doing something different, something that suits our task. Basically what Stenders is doing on the (commercial) lot of Talpa’s Veronica: giving young talent a chance, donating the channel to the listener for a week, trying things out, don’t put too much weight on listening figures. Have you noticed how much public money has gone to major social media campaigns and sky-high billboards along the highway this year? Since when is more listeners the primary goal of a public radio station?
Now that I’ve seen Beelen and Van Velthuysen in action again during the Top 2000, I can’t wait to hear what will be heard on NPO Radio for five hours, from 10 p.m. to 3 a.m. 2 (and to see!): more of this puberty stuff again? Again only callers in this broadcast shouting ‘heyyyyyy Gieltjeeeeeee’ or ‘heyyyyyy Rickieeeeeee’. A lot of unintelligent, thoughtless nonsense. Whores in the studio (Giel still has some phone numbers from his 3FM time). Etc. etc. And then think it’s crazy that no intelligent person wants to listen to the radio anymore? While when you hear Giel and Rick in their podcasts you are suddenly pleasantly surprised and think ‘hey, those guys are quite good at interviewing. Ask a thoughtful question.” Why does it always have to be so adolescent and below all standards on the (national, government-subsidized public! broadcasting)?
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