Sunday night will be the hundredth episode of the satirical program Sunday with Lubach broadcast. With that milestone, the program ends the eleventh season. NU.nl looks back on the past seasons.
The VPRO program of Arjen Lubach and his team was first broadcast on November 9, 2014. Since then, the program has achieved some major successes and has regularly influenced the political agenda.
Inspiration for Sunday with Lubach was taken from major American late-night shows like The Daily Show With Jon Stewart and Last Week Tonight With John Oliver. Formula: presenter in suit, a full studio and jokes that follow each other at a rapid pace and current affairs that are put in a new light.
Drew last season Sunday with Lubach an average of two million viewers per episode, a record. But in the beginning, high viewing figures were not self-evident. There were favorable reviews, but the high ratings were not observed. That is why Matthijs van Nieuwkerk started a ‘campaign’ in 2015 to attract more viewers to Lubach’s program. After showing a video clip every day for a week in The world goes on, suddenly saw twice as many people Sunday with Lubach; more than half a million. It has now become one of the most viewed programs of NPO3.
‘A big editorial team with a small group’
In recent seasons, the program has also achieved a number of successes beyond our borders. A good example of this is the ‘The Netherlands Second videoLubach and his editors made in response to President Donald Trump taking office in the United States. But also the mysterious trailer for Westeros, what a spin-off from Game of Thrones in modern times, things were very busy.
In 2016, Sunday with Lubach won the Silver Nipkow Disc and in 2017 the Golden Televizier Ring. Then Lubach joined that same year RTL Late Night asked about the success behind the program he said: “I want to emphasize that we do it with multiple creative minds and minds. We are all multidisciplinary. They are all people who can do several things. So someone has a good voice and who can also write jokes. Or someone is good with language and also musically. As a result, we actually have a very large editorial team with a small club. “
The program regularly stirs up dust
Examples of subjects that have determined the debate in the Netherlands are the items about nuclear energy, Chinese webshops and the long arm of Turkey. But certain actions also received a lot of enthusiasm from the public. For example, during the recent parliamentary elections, viewers could use an app for one Kamergotchi concerns: a signed version of a party leader.
Recently, the program raised controversy with it item about RUMAG. Lubach reproached the online platform for making money for a campaign to raise money for the Red Cross to fight the corona crisis. The presenter was also keen on the fact that RUMAG was rather loosely dealing with copyright. The company translated existing English texts into Dutch and then placed them on merchandise. As a result of a turbulent week, Thijs van der Heide, the CEO of RUMAG, stepped down.
Other format by coronavirus
The eleventh season of Sunday with Lubach looked a bit different than usual due to the corona measures. For example, the last few episodes were not recorded in the studio, but in – according to Lubach – a kind of bunker without an audience. Two of his colleagues, editor-in-chief Janine Abbring and editor and ‘reporter’ Tex de Wit, were also more often in the picture. Lubach said about the new form in the podcast Pep Talk that in the beginning he struggled a bit with that new format. “But I was happy that we really found a mode for those later episodes: there is just not going to be a smile, so just keep going.”
The last episode of this season can be seen on NPO3 on Sunday evening at 9:25 PM.
– .
