AMSTERDAM -- Nine months after the start of his new commercial television channel Talpa, Dutch media giant and billionaire John de Mol is facing a hard battle to succeed in his goal of conquering one-tenth of the Dutch TV market. Up to now, Talpa has averaged a 6.5% share and several high-profile programs have been axed. De Mol's prime disappointment was the failure of his very ambitious daily infotainment program NSE, a combination of news, sports and entertainment. Anchored at first by De Mol's sister Linda de Mol, the show had months of disastrous ratings, never attracting more than 130.000 viewers, until De Mol pulled the plug. Another surprise in Talpa's shaky start was the poor performance by many Dutch TV celebrities who joined the channel for enormous salaries. Local stars such as talk shows hosts Frits Barend and Henk Van Dorp, high-profile reporter Ivo Niehe and comedian Jack Spijkerman, lost half the viewers they had on their previous channels.
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