Piet Veenstra and Hans Bos (Soundscape) (2000–2006) Martijn Schimmer (2006–2019) Hart van Nederland (Heart of the Netherlands) is a tabloid newsmagazine programme airing on SBS6 since 1995.
The show focuses on in-depth coverage of regional and local news from across the Netherlands, as well as reports on lifestyles and cultural traditions in and around the country.
However, in the midst of this, the hiring of Albert Verlinde as entertainment reporter, and weatherman Piet Paulusma, as well as its coverage of the 1997 Elfstedentocht, changed the programme's fortunes, and established the show as an alternative to the more serious offers provided by their competitors.
Regional TV channels were also given a boost, as Hart van Nederland often shared content with these stations, which also helped with their ratings.
[2] The show, as it began to thrive, added a Saturday edition in late 1999, and attempted, during 1997, with breakaway windows for news related to specific parts of the country.
[3] In the midst of this, Albert Verlinde left the show in 2001 to join rival RTL, as it prepared to launch a tabloid newsmagazine, but with a different focus to that of Hart van Nederland.
Nevertheless, SBS took in-house the production of the programme in 2001,[1] and also began to expand its news programming, with the launch of the opinion-led format Stem van Nederland (2002–2003) and the crime newscast Actienieuws (2004–2006).
This began with the firing of three of the show's longest-tenured presenters, Milika Peterzon, Cilly Dartell and Maureen du Toi, which generated heavy negative publicity.
[7] The Shownieuws programme also became separated from the overall SBS news service, gaining its own team of presenters and analysts, but still sharing a studio with Hart van Nederland.
He left the show in December 2019 as part of a restructuring of SBS' weather department,[13] he would move to public broadcaster Omroep MAX shortly thereafter.