The intention

With his ambitious television project, John de Mol aimed for a market share of 10 percent to be achieved.

The approach

De Mol made an investment of millions and bought TV stars such as Linda de Mol, Beau van Erven Dorens, Jack Spijkerman, broadcasting rights to premier league football and invested in countless new formats.

A mix of football, games, Nederlands drama (Gooische Women, Van Speijk), talk shows, a reality soap with porn star Kim Holland and a program where corpses were cut.

The result

Viewing figures fell short of expectations and fluctuated between the 6 and 7 percent. Even the main crowd puller, Eredivisie football, scored less well than expected. The program "The Competitions" attracted a lot of attention on Sunday evening 2 million viewers: 1 million less than Studio Sport before.

TEN was not doing well financially either. The Mols channel lost millions of euros a year. Media analyst Oskar Tijs of investment bank Kempen estimates that De Mol annually 125 and 150 million euros on salaries and broadcasting rights, among other things.

Despite an investment of millions and despite a selection of stars who did score on other channels, TIEN/Talpa did not manage independently. TIEN has now been integrated into parts of RTL Group. Talpa Media received a share of 26,3 percent in the new RTL Netherlands.

The lessons

Why has TEN/Talpa not been a success and what can be learned from it?

The main criticism is that the profile of the channel was not clear: TEN tried to be there for women, men and families. For example, compare the profile with Net5. That has a clearly defined target group: young, women with purchasing power. “Unfortunately, Tien did not succeed in getting the target group sharp”, according to media analyst Oscar Tijs.

Marceline Beijer of media agency Kobalt: “Talpa seems to be targeting three target groups at once”: with soccer on men, with drama series on women and on families with, for example, Lotte. That's unclear. Advertisers do not know who they are reaching.”

In many places, John de Mol's TV channel is portrayed as a failure. John de Mol himself does not agree. “I always said it would take three to five years to get where we wanted to be. And I've always said that 90% of the new programs would fail”, according to the media mogul at the table at Nova. “The losses we have suffered are all calculated, everything went according to the business plan.”

Nevertheless, he acknowledges that some calculation errors have been made, like bringing NSE . too early. “That would have been better not to come until the second or third year.” He also says that he underestimated how loyal the viewership is. “Many people tuned into the Vara at eight o'clock on Saturday for a comedy-like program. After the departure of Jack Spijkerman, the Vara very cleverly programmed Paul de Leeuw. Apparently it takes longer to get people out of their habit.”

And then there's that image problem that Talpa is so often associated with. “I can't pinpoint that exactly. A euphoria has been forced upon us, I had to express an expected market share at one point”, according to De Mol. The media mogul furthermore thinks that he himself is the image problem. “People often say that to me. I've been talking about this for years, also at Endemol, with Joop van den Ende at the time. I just refuse to improve my image. I'm someone who works behind the scenes and I don't want to be a celebrity. I don't think that's stupid, maybe stubborn.”

Further:
John de Mol's television project has produced some beautiful series. For example, Talpa/TEN was praised for the many Dutch drama series. These gems don't have to be lost, the RTL group shows it again. Now for a wider audience.

Sources o.a.: NRCNext March 2007, Zappen.blog.nl.

Author: editors IvBM

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