Stefan Raab's TV comeback: flop or end of an era?

Stefan Raab's TV comeback: flop or end of an era?

Stefan Raab's comeback on television turned out to be a flop. The show “You won’t win a million here with Stefan Raab”, which started on February 12, 2025, is coming to a standstill after only 32 episodes. Ratings were fluctuating from the start, with a first day of broadcast reaching 1.59 million viewers and a 15.5% market share in the 14- to 49-year-old target group. But by April 2025 the ratings had fallen drastically. The number of viewers in the relevant target group fell to a shocking 0.23 million, as vienna.at reports.

Today's final edition on June 12, 2025 was seen by just 0.72 million viewers and marked the first dip below the million mark, resulting in a devastating market share of just 3.6 percent. In direct comparison, the ZDF format “Aktenzeichen Another special, the event show “Chefsache ESC 2025”, was also not convincing and only recorded 0.73 million viewers.

Causes of failure

RTL sees the less successful combination of quiz, game show and comedy as one of the main reasons for the show's failure. RTL program director Inga Leschek explained that hybrid formats were difficult to establish on classic television and the mix was not well received by viewers. Although the show initially achieved good results when streaming on RTL+, it was not successful on linear TV. This is particularly unfortunate given the previous successes of Raab's formats, which regularly reached over two million viewers and market shares of over 20% in the 2000s, according to dwdl.de.

The final discontinuation of the show in its previous form comes after a seasonal summer break and is primarily due to the lack of acceptance among the audience. A comparison with a new edition of “TV Total” with Sebastian Pufpaff also shows clearly that the ratings for Raab’s comeback fell far short of expectations.