[BLOG] To say that the hut is on fire at Radio Veronica is putting it mildly. During the last listening figure measurement, the station reached a historic low of 1.6% market share, even below the bankrupt 3FM. It can hardly be otherwise, the channel has fluctuated so much in format and programming in recent years. Veronica is like a restaurant where the guests have been served a hair in their soup just a little too often. The brand new Flemish owner Mediahuis now thinks he can solve this by throwing around a big bag of money. After the overpaid millions they lost to have Veronica broadcast on FM at all, they are now throwing another million at it to pry Gerard Ekdom away from direct competitor Radio 10. And he is not the only one they are after. ..
Last week the tam tam was dominated by another deejay, Wouter van der Goes from NPO Radio 2. He was said to be in discussions with several stations at Talpa but also at Veronica. It is currently ‘just ask’ in the radio DJ market, especially if you have this on a well-listened station. Now I have received the message that the Flemish owners of Veronica already have the ideal image in mind for their afternoon show: the illustrious duo Wout & Frank, known from Friday afternoon on 2. But here comes the most spicy detail of this story: If both Van der Goes if Van ‘t Hof makes the switch to Veronica and Gerard Ekdom comes to do the morning, then Rob Stenders will also stay. He would like to throw overboard his agreement in principle with BNNVARA to return to NPO Radio 2, because of his love for Veronica. I can imagine something about that, I have also put my heart and soul into it for 12 years and then you indeed still have a (small) chance of keeping the radio ship afloat instead of permanently stranding it. This is the dream programming that the Flemish Media Giant has in mind:
06-10am Gerard Ekdom
10am-12pm Skateboy Sander Hoogendoorn
12-2pm Frank ‘golden tooth’ van der Lende
14-16u Rob Stenders
4-7pm Wouter van der Goes and Frank van ‘t Hof
You may think I’m a sour, old, vindictive prick (and I can be that sometimes) but in this case I would like to warn our Flemish venture capitalists again: I understand that big chief Tom Klerkx of Mediahuis has stated that the ambition is to achieve an 8% market share with Veronica. You’re not going to succeed like that. Radio Veronica is so damaged that you should consider starting completely blank with a less tarnished brand. Moreover (and now comes a very important one) the new morning and afternoon jocks are well known, but have also been riding the success of the station where they work for years, not the other way around! See examples from the past, where even one of the most famous, Giel Beelen, could no longer get Veronica to work in the morning. Of course you have quite a bit of talent that can strengthen each other, but no matter how good the service and your cook are, if the restaurant has not been running for years, it is very difficult to get customers back.
I could say here that with Gerard Ekdom you have brought in the Jacques Herb of the radio who will sing his hit Manuela for the umpteenth time, that Rob Stenders has also been doing the same trick for years, which is getting really boring and that Wout & Frank have just risen above the level of local broadcasting and can be grateful to God on their bare knees that they can air their childishness on such a major channel on Friday afternoon. But I don’t do that, because then I seem jealous that they don’t ask me. Only with Edwin Evers in the morning would you -perhaps- get Veronica to talk, Ekdom does not have nearly that appeal. As I wrote on Wednesday with the listening figures: they should be sensible there in Belgium and just SLAM! put it back on this old, somewhat rickety channel package that they paid way too much money for. Then there is still a chance to earn back that 22 million, that brand is alive and that target group is hardly served. Do you want to burn a lot of money further? Be my guest, continue with your Veronica resuscitation plan and we will meet again in a year and a half.
2023-12-16 13:00:10
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