RTL celebrates after show launch: Stefan Raab breaks “all records” in streaming

Stefan Raab is back and is helping RTL reach unprecedented heights in streaming. The Cologne broadcaster is celebrating an “exceptional artist”. Raab’s former broadcaster ProSieben also held its own on Wednesday.

After almost ten years of being away from the camera, Stefan Raab’s TV comeback quickly seemed like the show messiah himself was returning home. The 57-year-old’s announcement that his first regularly broadcast new show series would not be shown on linear television, but exclusively on the streaming portal RTL+ until further notice, was all the more surprising.

In the run-up to the event, Raab’s comeback news, which he announced after his defeat against former boxing world champion Regina Halmich, was hotly debated. While some thought the return of the “entertainment dinosaur” was “embarrassing” and had the impression that the entertainer had gotten “quite old”, others cheered Raab’s comeback.

And then on Wednesday, September 18, the entertainer ventured out on his own again. His new quiz show is called “You won’t win the million with Stefan Raab.”

Following the premiere on RTL+, the reactions to “DGHNDMBSR” were mixed. “How great was that? Stefan Raab is back in town and he’s still got it!” praises X-user Milan.

On the other hand, user Chris Ernst thinks that Raab’s comeback was not successful: “Old jokes and a hint of show-technical waste dumping.” He goes on to write: “Old jokes and a hint of show-technical waste dumping.”

RTL: “Best reboot ever on RTL+”

But the presumed calculation that the prominent personnel will give the partially paid VoD service a boost seems to be working for RTL.

As the Cologne broadcaster announced, the premiere of “Du gewinnst hier nicht die Million bei Stefan Raab” on Wednesday evening was “the best new start of all time on RTL+”.

In addition, the show “generated the strongest growth in subscriptions of an original format on Germany’s leading streaming service.” And that’s not all: “The proportion of those who came into contact with RTL+ for the very first time is also spectacular.” 73 percent of the new subscriptions were sold to new customers. The rest are “returnees who came back to RTL+ for Stefan Raab.”

“TV total” (still) unimpressed by Raab’s comeback

“This is exactly what I expected: Stefan Raab is back and is breaking all records on Germany’s largest national streaming platform RTL+,” said program director Inga Leschek in her company’s letter. Stefan Raab has “shown once again that he is an exceptional artist.”

As is usual with streaming content, RTL does not publish any concrete viewing figures for “Du gewinnst hier nicht die Million”. However, there are viewing figures for Raab’s live comeback on the previous Saturday. The boxing match against Regina Halmich broadcast on RTL was watched by an average of 5.9 million people over the almost three-and-a-half hour broadcast. The market share was an outstanding 52.9 percent.

Meanwhile, “TV total” with Sebastian Pufpaff was largely unimpressed by the new competition on Wednesday evening. The show, once invented by Raab and now running in direct competition with him, confirmed the reach of the previous week with 1.05 million viewers. The ratings may have been helped by Pufpaff’s several ironic swipes at Raab. Until further notice, there will be no losers in what is probably the most explosive show duel on German television.

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