[BLOG] Hey Kicken, what ‘s that? Has the great 538 bashing started, rightaround the time that 538 is exactly 30 years old? First Niek van der Bruggenhas to sing three tones lower and now you have aimed your arrows at Wietze deJager? Well they do it themselves, by doing things on-air that would even getyou rapped on the fingers of the local broadcaster. Now it is Wietze de Jager,morning man at 538, who will tell his listeners in an 8-minute talk (!) thatthe morning show is very tough and he would rather work four days instead offive. What a poverty.
The audio fragment is now massively shared among jocks on whatsapp, the lamentof brand new morning jock Wietze de Jager against his sidekicks, live on-air,during the 538 Top 1000. No less than eight minutes long. Here you lose yourcourage, bring something like ‘entertainment’ in a morning show. Sure you can(and should) be personal, but that doesn’t mean you should just sit around andevaluate with your colleagues on a national station, for the hard-foughtattention of the listener in the morning. Listen and shudder for yourself:
‘Again another song that makes you think ooh how nice isn’t it’. And thenpretend you’re going to bring world news. ‘Paternity leave’. starts music,then newsreader Mart reveals the punch line of the story, Wietze doesn’treact, pretends his nose is bleeding and then goes on to say that he finds itall difficult, combining a morning show with a family with three youngchildren. Not a nice father anymore. And so wants to work four instead of fivedays. Because he wants to take his children to school one day a week. After 9months of morning show, Wietze de Jager is already half giving up, on-air.Compliments. 538 will win the match with you!
I understand his intention, nice talking about your kids on-air to relate withother parents, but with this you completely miss the point. If you already dothis, you prepare this well, you agree with your co-hosts which way the storywill go. No, nice and unprepared to sit around and tell them that youmisunderstood how heavy a morning show is. With Sensation White in thebackground. What shabby content the Dutch radio listener is treated to.
I may be exaggerating it all, but haven’t I already written it down a hundredtimes here: a morning or afternoon show can NOT be combined with raising youngchildren. You could have come up with that yourself in advance, as Klaas vander Eerden rightly points out three times in this talk. Your station managerCoco could have already figured this out. And if you’re going to discuss thison-air for 8 minutes during a hit list, you’re just an amateur. This hasnothing to do with entertainment, this is not cool, this is just first classtinkering. And worst of all, your listener just thinks ‘hey asshole, I have towork 8 hours a day five days a week, poser!’ If you are Edwin Evers who hasbuilt up a lot of credits with his listeners for a long time, then you mightstill get away with such an insider story, but you just came to see 538 thatmorning. Your mission is now all on everything put to win souls, not to sitand act pathetic!
And then they will come back to it a day later by getting listeners into thebroadcast. To speak with Domien: man, man, man. Wietze, you have disqualifiedyourself as a morning deejay for me on this one. Then just stop doing itcompletely, go back to doing something on the weekend and Friday evening andleave the morning to someone who is 200% motivated for it. That is also theonly way to win the competition, as I wrote so often, you don’t just add amorning show. I can hope that Dave Minneboo will have a word with his morningman: either you put everything aside to make this work, or it was a shortadventure for you. This is exactly the same arrogance that your predecessorFrank Dane displayed in the morning and now you’re going to do it all overagain?
Patrick Kicken
Fortunately, on the floors above the Radio 538 studio, people still thinkabout what is fun for the listener. Otherwise, check out these two videofragments of your Talpa colleagues who are now going viral Wietze. Or ask yourcompanion and comedian Klaas van de Eerden for some advice on storytelling, hewill never go unprepared on stage and just gossip without a punch.
Otherwise just move the Veronica morning show to 538, problem solved. TimKlijn seems motivated! Old 538 jock, can go back again, together with thesidekicks of Evers: