The new Erwin is born

Thirty budding weathermen and weatherwomen got the chance to make their bid for TV fame in Lumen at the beginning of November. The goal: a real job as weather expert with the Dutch TV news company NOS. To find the right person, the NOS came along to the autumn symposium of the Dutch association of meteorologists (NVBM). Good idea, as the new weatherperson definitely has to be a meteorologist. But what does the ideal weatherperson look like? Weatherman and ex-Wageninger Gerrit Hiemstra explains: ‘He should be able to hold the viewer’s interest. That is the most important thing.’ The question is of course, how do you do that? ‘By your use of language, how you look, your expressiveness. It is best when someone is a natural,’ suggests Hiemstra. ‘You need to communicate through the camera, as it were. The main thing is to be yourself. You shouldn’t put on an act. A lot of people are inclined to start behaving differently when they get into a studio.’ The candidates each got a quarter of an hour to present themselves. There wasn’t much chance to prepare. It needs to be off the cuff, says Hiemstra. That is the best way of sorting the sheep from the goats. There is no audience, though – after all, this isn’t Idols, it’s an audition. But there is one young man at the entrance to Lumen who doesn’t mind saying how it went. Anonymously, that is, because his colleagues know nothing about. He looks quite sunny. It went well. Could this be the new Erwin?