The old domain of VPRO, established in decades of Meticulous and Desperate Simplism, Tegenlicht and Zomer- dan Wintergasten, languished for quite a while. Viewer terror fragmented the safely elitist offerings. BNNVARA searched for a tone and didn't find it. Cultural omnivores like yours truly could no longer put the TV on 2 with impunity, only to turn it off again by midnight after an evening of content.
Cultural programming is also keilastig, of course. You naturally serve a small target group with it. Any attempt to turn it into something grand and compelling ends in a bloody Champions League with all the MattjhijsVanNieuwkerk consequences, and even if that is the dream of every NPO top figure, it doesn't save culture.
The book programs which always got a chance for a few halves of a season in recent years, did not attract enough viewers for the top of Hilversum. Attempts to make it smooth and hip did strand Wilfried de Jong. Sports haste pairs poorly with reading, and listening was not his biggest asset. Nadia Moussaid still wanders along the various themes, in search of true happiness, which she did not find with art and books.
The son of
And then there was Gijs. Hanneke's son has gloriously followed in his mother's footsteps with a programme that is in the first two episodes managed to strike the right tone. Gijs Groenteman, best known to the general public as the smiley face versus ironist Marcel van Roosmalen, is single-handedly an amiable host who is unfeignedly curious. The formula, with guests really having something to say and being given time to do so, works.
It is also all much less sacred than at Cornald Maas. Of course, this man who once began his career as editor of Gijs's mother is also a director of the country's biggest patron, and somehow that affects how free guests tend to be with him. One wrong word and you can shake your next production, it seems.
With Gus, that problem does not play out. He does not seem to be close friends with Van den Ende, and can star struck are without any agenda behind it. Gijs is pleasantly awkward, does not hide his own nerves and admires without swooning. A keeper, then.
Floris Kortie stays
Early Sunday night has also been saved. Floris Kortie has now established his place at NTR as a new TV personality. At the start of this season he suddenly found himself alone at Podium Klassiek, the then amped-up remnant of Podium Witteman. Pianist and storyteller Mike Boddé had been given the blues heavily and was sulking about his pay at home. Dieuwertje Blok, once flown in to please the older Witteman audience, needed time for Sinterklaas and a programme of her own about classical music. We feared here that Podium Klassiek, the successor to Podium Witteman, would be allowed to survive in a death trap until last December.
But Kortie proved excellent at carrying the programme on his own. Indeed, he managed, together with the editors, to make his playful input the programme's theme. Much more blending of genres, room for jazz and international repertoire. Thanks to Cor Bakker, a big nod to audiences who do not have a conservatoire.
Later care
Meanwhile, Podium Klassiek stands like a house. The role of young people and children has increased, also because Kortie handles them a lot less clumsily than grandpa Paul Witteman used to. And those who miss Mike Boddé can visit internet, where he occasionally shares things.
Now, if Lotje Ijzermans also manages, from 25 February, to create a pleasantly slow but curious programme on books make, Sunday can't go wrong at all.
Remains the question of what Dieuwertje Blok will do. Enquiries to NTR Classical about the fate of her announced 'Blokje Podium' so far yield an icy silence.
Are we only missing a Dutch Jools Holland. But that's for later. Would Marcel van Roosmalen play in a band?
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