"The most embarrassing thing I've ever seen" Does the TV world still need Stefan Raab?
Stefan Raab announced his return to television on Saturday evening in Düsseldorf. The cult entertainer's comeback is still being talked about two days after the boxing match.
Image: dpa
Raab rarely landed a hit in the ring against Regina Halmich.
Image: dpa
The logical consequence: the 57-year-old suffered a defeat in the fight against the boxing world champion.
Image: dpa
Stefan Raab announced his return to television on Saturday evening in Düsseldorf. The cult entertainer's comeback is still being talked about two days after the boxing match.
Image: dpa
Raab rarely landed a hit in the ring against Regina Halmich.
Image: dpa
The logical consequence: the 57-year-old suffered a defeat in the fight against the boxing world champion.
Image: dpa
After almost ten years away from the screen, Stefan Raab is back in business. His new show on RTL+ starts on Wednesday. The cult entertainer's comeback is not going down equally well with everyone.
No time? blue News summarizes for you
- After almost ten years away from TV, Stefan Raab is returning to the screen.
- The legendary entertainer announced this on Saturday after a boxing match against Regina Halmich.
- Raab's new quiz and entertainment show will be broadcast on RTL+ from Wednesday.
- The network is celebrating Raab's return, but also lashing out at the entertainer.
He had disappeared from the scene for almost a decade: Stefan Raab (57) is back on German television. "I've been thinking about it: I'm doing shows again," said the entertainer to the camera on Saturday evening on RTL live in front of almost six million viewers. He had agreed a five-year contract with RTL.
The 57-year-old, who had actually been retired since 2015, was missed by some, while others found the comeback news "embarrassing" after his defeat to former world boxing champion Regina Halmich (47) on Saturday evening and had the impression that the entertainer had "aged quite a bit".
Although Raab surprised everyone with a new look: in good shape with muscles and a six-pack, but now white-haired.
Raab's new show is to be called "Du gewinnst hier nicht die Million bei Stefan Raab" and will be broadcast on Wednesday at 8.10 pm on the RTL+ streaming service.
In Raab's words, it will be "the world's first entertainment-quiz-competition hybrid show". It will feature everything he knows how to do. Among other things, he will also "dissect" the week's events. There will be a million euros to be won every week.
That sounds a bit like a mixture of "TV total" and "Schlag den Raab", two of his old formats from earlier television days.
"I do it to entertain myself"
"I also do it a bit (...) to entertain myself," said the seasoned show creator, who once made a career at Viva and then ProSieben until he retired to the production side in 2015. Raab indicated that he would not allow himself to be restricted in terms of the type of production and expenditure for new shows.
He made it clear to RTL in the negotiations: "I want to have the freedom I need to do this. And today, everywhere on television is being cut back and talked into. And everything has to become smaller. Nobody wants to make big shows anymore." However, he has "found a common philosophy" with RTL on this issue.
Up to 7.54 million viewers watched the fight
Until Saturday evening, it was unclear whether his exhibition fight against Halmich in Düsseldorf would be a one-off return from a break from the screen.
It was not clear until around 11.30 pm that the fight, in which the man from Cologne suffered a clear defeat against the Karlsruhe fighter for the third time, was just the ratings-boosting supporting program for his rebirth as an entertainer in front of the camera.
At the same time, he put all other TV stations in the shade. More than half of the younger audience (aged 14 to 49) tuned in. At peak times, up to 7.54 million people (up to 36.9 percent market share) tuned in to Raab.
Raab descends from the stairway to heaven to his disciples
For this return, the presenter and his team had dramaturgically designed one of the most sophisticated PR campaigns that German TV has ever seen.
Around Easter, Raab hinted at the comeback in short Internet clips and declared that he wanted to box against Halmich again - as he had done in 2001 and 2007. This time, Raab complained of "a little damage to his ribs" after the fight.
The "Raabinator" also took his time on Saturday. Shortly after 10 p.m. and after plenty of flashbacks to old Raab shows, the time had come - and the former butcher's apprentice was welcomed almost religiously by his audience.
After a countdown, a set of show stairs emerged from the high ceiling of the hall, seemingly leading down from the sky. Fitness influencer Pamela Reif (28) then floated above the audience as an angel on ropes and sang the anthem: "Stefan Raab is back."
Boxing hit at number one in the charts
Raab himself then slowly descended the eternally long ladder to heaven in a white suit and white cape to pathetic music and seemed to have the light in the room under godlike control.
Together with the two rappers Sido (43) and Ski Aggu (26), he sang his new boxing match song "Pa aufs Maul". According to "Bild", the song even overtook the band Linkin Park with their song "The Emptiness Machine" on Sunday evening and reached number one in the German iTunes charts. Entertaining - he can still do that, Stefan Raab.
Alongside much joy about the cult entertainer's comeback news, there is also a lot of frowning on the net. Whether Raab's return will do his career good or only tarnish it remains to be seen in the near future.
On threads, users suspect that Pamela Reif and Ski Aggu were an attempt to pick up the Insta generation. Several users there also say that last Saturday's show was "okay".
