Former Dutch cable TV channel
Television channel
Tien
Country
| Netherlands
|
---|
|
Owner
| Talpa Media (2005-July 2007)
RTL Nederland (July 2007-August 2007)
|
---|
|
Launched
| 13 August 2005
; 18 years ago
(
2005-08-13
)
|
---|
Closed
| 17 August 2007
; 16 years ago
(
2007-08-17
)
|
---|
Replaced by
| RTL 8
|
---|
Former names
| Talpa (2005-2006)
|
---|
|
Website
| www.tien.tv
|
---|
Tien
(meaning
Ten
in
Dutch
), previously known as
Talpa
, was the name of a commercial
television channel
in the
Netherlands
. Tien opened on August 13, 2005 as Talpa, following a name dispute with
SBS Broadcasting
. SBS owned the trademark "
TV10
" and objected to the use of the word Tien. The owner of Tien, Dutch media mogul
John de Mol
, decided to rebrand the channel as
Talpa
, the Latin word for "
mole
", which is
mol
in
Dutch
. Subsequently Talpa became the name of De Mol's holding company.
In the first months Talpa shared its channel space with
Nickelodeon
. On December 16, 2006, Nickelodeon switched to
The Box
and Tien started broadcasting full days.
In December 2006, Talpa and SBS Broadcasting solved their dispute. Talpa was renamed as Tien.
In the summer of 2007, the assets of Talpa Media were sold to
RTL Nederland
, which meant the end of the Tien television channel. RTL Nederland used the vacated cable spot to launch a new television channel called
RTL 8
. Also included in the deal were the broadcasting rights for the Dutch football league and radio station Radio 538. Tien closed on August 17, 2007.
Programmes
[
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]
Programmes included 'De Wedstrijden' (highlights of the
Eredivisie
football league),
Big Brother
and
Expeditie Robinson
. Tien is also noted for programming original Dutch drama, such as
Gooische Vrouwen
,
Lotte
,
Van Speijk
,
Boks
,
Voetbalvrouwen
and the daily comedy show
Samen
.
Van Speijk
, a highly publicized police series, attracted an average amount of 900,000 viewers weekly. Season one of "Gooische Vrouwen" attracted more than a million viewers each episode.
Samen
was the world's first daily comedy show.
Programming & ratings
[
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]
From the beginning, the channel struggled with disappointing ratings. Expectations were high, because Talpa owned the rights to summaries of matches played in the
Eredivisie
, the Dutch top-flight
football
league. The live broadcasting rights were owned by
Versatel
, another De Mol venture.
In the beginning, football programme De Wedstrijden scored disappointing ratings. Although by far the most-watched programme on Talpa, De Wedstrijden failed to attract the audience that
NOS
programme Studio Sport used to have. Dutch celebrities like
Ivo Niehe
and
Henny Huisman
also failed to attract their former audiences on Talpa. Niehe returned to his former employer
TROS
in January 2007. Niehe was also one of the most outspoken critics on the failure of the station in general. Huisman already left for
EO
after his unsuccessful stint with Talpa.
With Jack Spijkerman Talpa thought to have a guaranteed ratings hit, but his audience at Talpa was just one quarter of his former ratings at
VARA
. The football discussion program Spijkerman hosted with Humberto Tan was also unsuccessful and eventually axed.
Not all programmes flopped on Talpa. The controversial show Joling & Gordon over de Vloer (Joling and Gordon about the house, hosted by openly gay singers
Gordon Heuckeroth
and
Gerard Joling
) scored 1.2 million viewers. Other major hits were comedy drama series
Gooische Vrouwen
(Women from
't Gooi
, 1.6 million viewers) and
Voetbalvrouwen
, the Dutch version of
Footballers' Wives
(1.4 million viewers).
Expeditie Robinson
,
Miljoenenjacht
and Postcodeloterij Miljoenenjacht (1.5 million viewers) and
1 vs. 100
were also among the reasonably scoring shows, albeit with much smaller audiences than at the former broadcaster.
See also
[
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]
References
[
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]
Further reading
[
edit
]
- Versteeg, D. (2005).
Talpa — de geboorte van een televisiezender
. Naarden: Strengholt's Boeken.
ISBN
90-5860-233-8
.
External links
[
edit
]