RTL4 Renews Contract GTST For Four Years

Dutch broadcaster RTL4 has renewed it's contract for GOEDE TIJDEN SLECHTE TIJDEN with production company Endemol Nederland. The popular soap opera will stay on the air until at least 2015. Cast and crew received the good news this morning.

Erland Galjaard, an executive at RTL4 responsible for programming: "It's going really well with the show. Both in terms of quality and ratings. This season we had an average of 1,4 million viewers and we reached a broad audience. GTST is an important part of the early evening of RTL4. That's why we renewed the contract with Endemol Nederland for four years. The viewer has to keep tuning into RTL4 to see Netherlands' only real soap opera."

Peter Adrichem, executive at Endemol: "This renewal - for four years - is unique in television land. Now we can think a long time in advance. This will be good for the storylines and image of the show. This past year GTST proved to be still very popular. I have faith that this is going to stay that way during the coming years."

This season GTST celebrated it's 20th anniversary and last year the show celebrated the 4000th episode. Right now there have been 4240 episodes. Twenty years later the show is still popular. It shows in the ratings. The average rating is 1,4 million (target audience 6+ from September 2010 until now). Some of the episodes even had 1,7 or 1,8 million viewers. The market share 20-49 is 23%, that's above RTL4's average.

The show is also popular in new media. On weekdays GTST is almost always at number 1 in the online streams ratings. The official website GTST.nl also had more visitors. Every week the website has 450.000 unique visitors. The GTST tweets are being followed by 22.000 fans. The show and it's characters are often trending topic on Twitter.

Executive producer Kennard Bos has a few spoilers for the coming weeks: "Charlie and Danny continue their secret affair and get in more and more trouble. When will Rik realize that his wife is cheating on him with his brother? The pregnancy of Sjors puts more and more pressure on her relationship with Bing. Nina, after being confronted with the truth about Noud's accident, makes an important decision that will change her relationship with her parents forever. Lorena discovers a secret from her past that will put her world upside down. We're getting closer to the always much talked about summer cliffhanger. This year it's going to be extra shocking. Not only the much needed suspense but also a surprise that isn't pleasant for everyone."