Carmen Verheul has won the RadioFreak Award for Best Newsreader. The NOS newsreader received the most votes from the public. Ronald Remmelzwaan of the Algemeen Nederlands Persbureau (ANP) and Henk Blok of Radio 538 were also nominated.
Verheul is the regular newsreader in the morning on NPO Radio 2. On that channel she was surprised with the prize this morning. In the broadcast of the morning show Jan-Willem Startspresented by Jan-Willem Roodbeen and sidekick Jeroen Kijk in de Vegte, she was told she was the winner.
“This really means a lot to me”, was her first reaction. “As a 13-year-old girl, if you go out on the street with your tape recorder to do street interviews and you dream of the radio, then the love for radio runs very deep.”
Verheul was already nominated for the prize in 2015, but then Henk Blok won. Last year her colleague Matijn Nijhuis won the prize. He is also one of the regular newsreaders on NPO Radio 2, but in the afternoon.
This year there were more than 16,000 votes for the RadioFreak Awards. There are six categories mainly for the people who work behind the scenes at the radio, such as Best Design, Best Reporter and Best Night Program. According to the radio news site, “there is more than just the familiar radio sights.”