September 3, 2010

Rich Dutch housewives show a hit in France

Filed under: Film,Shows by Orangemaster @ 10:36 am

The French version of the hit Dutch television show and Desperate Housewives copycat ‘Gooische Vrouwen’ (‘Women of het Gooi’, a rich neighbourhood of Hilversum where Dutch TV makers used to live’) is known in France as “Jardins Secrets” (Secret Gardens), is dubbed rather than subtitled and is a hit. (The Dutch subtitle shows from other countries (cheaper), while big countries like France and Germany dub everything (laws and such).

Back in 2008 when we first posted about it, “some 2.3 million people watched the first episode, which translates to a market share of 26.6%. TF1 broadcast the first three episodes back-to-back, and later during the evening the market share rose to 31.6%.

French television station TF1 is super sloppy with the introduction of the show on their website, as they claim it’s Danish. Dutch people commented in good French with a polite explanation, but the information was copy pasted from another site with the same mistake. The blurb even implies that Amsterdam could be in Denmark! Ouille, ça fait mal !

As well, De Telegraaf tells of Linda de Mol (pic) who in the dubbed French version has a nasty low class accent, which now has me all curious. It is ironic since people of het Gooi have a specific accent that is associated with money and a rolling ‘r’. The cast has also received criticism regarding the Gooische Vrouwen film that is coming out for the excessive drinking that takes place in the film. De Mol explains that the series was sold to Russia and China and expects nothing less that a lot of drinking in their versions as well. After all, it it’s television, not reality.

(Link: De Telegraaf. Source photo: RTL)

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May 23, 2010

Richest self-made men and women of 2010

Filed under: General,Sports by Branko Collin @ 3:17 pm

Glossy money magazine Quote presented its 100% Selfmade list last week, an overview of the 100 richest self-made Dutch people of under the age of 40.

The Top 5 is:

  1. David Slager (37), 270 million euro, stock trader
  2. Reinout Oerlemans (38), 73 million euro, TV director and producer
  3. Roger Hodenius (38), 60 million euro, stock trader
  4. Andruw Jones (33), 54 million euro, professional baseball player
  5. Ruud van Nistelrooij (33), 53 million euro, professional football player

Quote regularly publishes a list of the 500 richest people of the Netherlands, including those who inherited their fortunes, and the difference with the self-made folks is stunning. The latter only lost half a million euro per capita in the past 12 months, whereas all the rich combined lost 17.8 billion, which comes down to 36 million euro per person.

In fact, only the losses of one man, Maasbert Schouten (banker, 38), who saw 200 million of his 235 million euro evaporate last year, stunted the growth of the self-made rich. Collectively they went from 2 billion euro to 1.95 billion euro.

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November 21, 2009

Domino record broken again

Filed under: Shows by Branko Collin @ 8:59 am

Last week a team of 89 ‘builders’ broke the world record for toppling dominoes in one long chain reaction.

In total, 4.491.863 stones of the 4.8 million that were originally set up, fell over at the WTC Expo in Leeuwarden for this year’s Domino Day. Almost three million Dutch viewers watched the show live on television, which was a record for the annual programme.

Source video: Associated Press. Link: Geo TV, Nieuws.nl.

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April 5, 2009

Crisis TV: fire your co-worker

Filed under: Shows by Branko Collin @ 1:13 pm

At the MIP fair in Cannes last week Dutch TV producer Endemol presented a TV format that pits co-workers against each other as they get to vote one another off a company’s payroll. This is about real companies, not just ones made up for the show, and real people with real jobs that feed children. The working title is Someone’s Gotta Go says Worldscreen.com, which adds that the producer has already sold the format to broadcaster Fox in the USA.

In Algemeen Dagblad (Dutch) Endemol’s Paul Römer explains that the programme will follow a mid-sized company that has been hit hard by the economic crisis. People will have to be fired there.

“We start by showing everybody’s salaries. After that we show which employees are valuable to the company. And who’s shirking their responsibilities. Who deserves a raise? Who deserves lower wages? And ultimately the employees must answer the question: who must be fired?”

Römer expects the show would also work in the Netherlands. His lawyers are undoubtedly busy trying to find out how to not run afoul of the Dutch worker protection laws.

Endemol is the firm of John de Mol, brother of Linda and father of Johnny, and is responsible for introducing the world to such upstanding TV programmes as Big Brother and Give the Whore a Chance. No, wait, I forgot, that last one was a parody by Mugmetdegoudentand. No, wait again, three years after the parody was broadcast, and the underlying concept widely rejected as too unrealistic, John de Mol did indeed make a reality show with prostitutes. Because that’s the kind of classy guy he is.

Illustration by Wikimedia user Stannerd, used under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2.

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June 18, 2008

Public broadcasters testing YouTube-like system

Filed under: Online,Shows by Branko Collin @ 2:25 pm

The united Dutch public broadcasters are considering introducing a YouTube like system for posting videos of shows according to Webwereld (Dutch), and have a test version of the system online.

The current version of Uitzending Gemist (Missed a programme?) uses WMV clips, which aren’t as accessible as Flash Video. Apart from introducing Flash video, the new system will allow you to embed Dutch shows in your blog and elsewhere on the Web, and will let visitors comment on shows. Pretty much the things Youtube allows you to do.

Webwereld quotes NPO (part of NOS) manager William Valkenburg as saying: “For now we’ll be testing the player with a limited number of shows to see what people will do with it and what functions they will use. After that we will consider the nature of further deployment.”

The Dutch public broadcasting system was originally set up for radio in the early 20th century in a way that allowed the Catholics, Protestants, socialists, and so on to set up their own broadcasting corporations. Fees were collected directly from citizens and distributed among the broadcasters depending on membership ratios. An umbrella corporation called NOS was founded to share costs and to broadcast programmes of a general nature. As recent as the late 1980s, commercial stations started pirate broadcasts from Luxembourg, and in 1992 these were legalised, making it possible for commercial entities to broadcast from within the Netherlands itself.

This week minister Plasterk was asked questions in parliament why NOS uses a proprietary Microsoft system for broadcasting EURO2008 over the Internet, locking out GNU/Linux users in the process.

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April 4, 2008

Housewives to conquer France?

Filed under: Shows by Branko Collin @ 11:07 am

France rarely looks to the North—or indeed to the East, South or West. But last week, the French massively tuned into TF1, their most popular TV channel, to follow the lives of four Dutch bored and rich housewives, as portrayed in Gooische Vrouwen, a vehicle for Linda de Mol (photo) and a Desperate Housewives clone. The series is broadcast in France as “Jardins Secrets” (Secret Gardens) and is dubbed. According to ANP, 2.3 million people watched the first episode, which translates to a market share of 26.6%. At that time the show had competition from “FBI portés disparus” and “Les nouveaux voisins.” TF1 broadcast the first three episodes back-to-back, and later during the evening the market share rose to 31.6%.

Gooise Vrouwen means “Women of De Gooi,” the latter being the rich neighbourhood of Hilversum where Dutch TV makers used to live. The name literally means The Shire, but is now synonymous with decadence. The saying goes that if you want to make it in Dutch television, you have to sleep “on the Gooi’s matress”, meaning to sleep with somebody influential in TV land (in lieu of talent or skills). It’s the Dutch equivalent of the casting couch, if you like.

Via Z24 (Dutch). Source photo: RTL.

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April 25, 2007

Dutch 70s hit music show revived on the web

Filed under: Music,Shows,Weird by Branko Collin @ 10:39 pm
toppop-blondie.jpg
Illustration: Blondie on a tin foil mointain on TopPop

The biggest pop music TV show in the Netherlands during the 1970s and the early 1980s was TopPop. This was the time when artists still had to show up in shows all over the world to have their faces remembered. Then video clips came along, and a competing channel brought Adam Curry back to the country to ride their wave. His show Countdown was the end of TopPop.

TopPop had several things going for it, not in the least its host Ad Visser, a slightly goofy looking guy who was into tantric sex and writing space operas. Artists would lip-sync against psychedelic backdrops, and if they were unable to come on the program, the show ballet of Penny de Jager would dance to a pop song. There was something oddly discomfitting about the show that was at the same time its biggest asset.

Clips of the show can of course be found on Youtube, but a few weeks ago an official archive was launched, which publishes themed compilations of performances. Think Blondie, Duran Duran, Randy Crawford, The Jacksons, The Carpenters, Grace Jones, Nina Hagen, and TopPop’s ballet dancing to the theme of Star Wars.

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