Editorial: What’s fuelling Dutch media’s negative coverage of Mia Nicolai and Dion Cooper…and why hasn’t AVROTROS shown more support?

Back in November, when Dutch broadcaster AVROTROS announced the duo Mia Nicolai and Dion Cooper as the country’s Eurovision entrant, a large portion of the Dutch population seemed indifferent. They were the latest in the country’s list of relatively unknown names chosen for the song contest. 

But in recent weeks the pair have been at the centre of extremely negative coverage, the extent of which hasn’t been seen among the Netherlands’ Eurovision community before. The media coverage in the Netherlands has been skewed in one direction — negative to downright mean.

Media react to Mia & Dion’s first performance

Usually the Dutch entrant performs their Eurovision song live for the first time on a talk show. However, for some reason, AVROTROS decided not to do that this year. In late March, Mia Nicolai and Dion Cooper said in an interview with Wiwibloggs that it was simply down to scheduling. 

“We’re going in with a big bang,” Dion said at the time, referencing their planned appearance at Eurovision in Concert in Amsterdam. 

A few days later, however, it emerged that they’d make their live debut at the PrePartyES in Madrid. It was a surprising choice for several reasons. Firstly, their debut would be in a foreign environment, which means they’d have less control over preparation and technicals (compared to a Dutch TV show where the pace is slower). That’s perhaps not the best environment for two young and inexperienced artists to present themselves for the first time. 

The duo performed “Burning Daylight” in Madrid and, needless to say, they faced a few technical difficulties. They were out of tune several times during the performance.

Dutch media and gossip-led juice channels picked up on the performance and reported it heavily. Rather than exploring the technical hurdles the duo faced, the media quickly portrayed them as having no chance at the contest based on that one performance. It was interesting because typically mainstream Dutch media platforms don’t really care about the performances at the pre-parties.  

AVROTROS quickly came back with a statement saying that the duo had faced technical difficulties. The broadcaster stayed firm on their choice and offered support to Mia and Dion. 

Did AVROTROS botch its response?

AVROTROS isn’t blameless in the media storm. They could have offered further explanation or shared more videos of Mia and Dion singing together. Instead, the Dutch media started a witch hunt prior to the duo’s performance in Amsterdam a week later. 

Although the performance in Amsterdam was noticeably better than in Madrid, a 40-second long snippet of them singing out of tune (it was filmed on a mobile phone) quickly went viral. A second wave of criticism followed from the Dutch media, who have seemingly concluded that the duo can’t sing and are unprepared for Eurovision. 

It is fair to say that AVROTROS’s reaction to this wave of negative publicity came too late. Ireland’s entrant Conor O’Donohoe from Wild Youth defended the duo more swiftly than their own broadcaster. 

And when the AVROTROS reaction did come, it was not even a defence. In fact, the broadcaster literally said in a statement that the performance was “not good” with no reference to the ongoing media coverage and abuse their entrants were receiving (and which, understandably, might be unnerving them and making it more difficult to recover). This was fuelled further when AVROTROS’ CEO Eric van Stade repeated that the performance had “not been good”: a classic reputation management apology, which does not work in the world of Eurovision.

Distrust in institutions

After a few days, Dutch media turned their spears towards the selection committee and Duncan Laurence. 

Duncan Laurence faced criticism for not being publicly visible during the weeks when Mia and Dion received their strongest criticism. He had not posted any public sign of support for his two close friends. His eventual Instagram Story said, “some things have happened in the past few weeks”, without any words of support or critique of the media scrutiny that had unfolded. 

The selection committee — the six people at AVROTROS responsible for selecting the entry — started to get stick as well. With distrust in institutions already growing in the country, it was clear that many people felt that too many Dutch artists had been run over by an “elite group” of six people to determine who, with public money, should represent the Netherlands. And they chose young people with a friendly tie to a popular musician. 

Why had there not been a national final? Why did AVROTROS choose two inexperienced singers who are friends of Duncan Laurence? 

Distrust of the broadcaster went up a notch when the newspaper Algemeen Dagblad found out that the AVROTROS had been dishonest about the unanimity of the broadcaster’s choice in the duo. In fact, Jan Smit, one of the six members, had been a vocal opponent of selecting the song. 

Jumping on the hate hype train

The situation has been a major talking point in the media over the past few weeks, pushing newspapers and drawing viewers. It’s become the talk of the town. 

Whereas normally Dutch media have little interest in Eurovision until rehearsal week, many talk shows have invited guests to talk about Mia and Dion’s misfortunes during the pre-parties in Madrid and Amsterdam. Many shows and platforms seemingly jumped on the hate hype train. Satire show Even tot hier even dedicated a whole sketch to the duo, who had already been a running gag for several months.

The negative coverage is casting a major shadow over the Netherlands’ efforts at this year’s Eurovision — and may well impact future participations as well. Interestingly, besides Flemish media, there has been no international media interest in Mia and Dion’s vocal capacities. Secondly, it makes me wonder whether any singer or group ever would want to represent the Netherlands again given how little support AVROTROS has shown its current singers. 

What do you think about the situation that’s unfolded around Mia Nicolai and Dion Cooper? Do you think that the broadcaster should have done more? Let us know in the comments down below!