Raab and Gottschalk Twilight: Last Chance for Eurovision

Tagesspiegel Raab and Gottschalk Twilight: Last Chance for Eurovision Gerrit Bartels • 23 hours • 2 minutes read Thomas Gottschalk says goodbye, RTL cancels Stefan Raab's shows: The once-great TV entertainers are now obsolete. It was a coincidence, but a beautifully symbolic one: Just a few days after Thomas Gottschalk announced his departure from the big Saturday night stage on the RTL show "Because They Don't Know What's Happening," RTL programming director Inga Leschek announced the end of Stefan Raab's mixed-up quiz and game show "You Won't Win a Million Here." Gottschalk also appeared on this show once in November of last year. Raab introduced him at the time with the words: "Look forward to it: Germany's second-best entertainer is right here with us." Who is the better entertainer, the number one, is probably a matter of opinion, but the present tense is the wrong tense here. The question must be who was the better entertainer. Because time has passed both Thomas Gottschalk and Stefan Raab. Only Raab flops on RTL Gottschalk's ratings may have been very good during his various "Wetten, dass...?" comebacks, but the soon-to-be 75-year-old gave exhaustive information on "Unfiltered" that perhaps that's enough for a while and that he certainly doesn't get along with a younger generation. And Stefan Raab? He was actually well advised to completely withdraw from the TV screen in 2015. And then not so well advised again when he returned with a moderately original remake of his boxing match against Regina Halmich. And when he signed a five-year contract with RTL for formats like the Millionen-Show and a show with Bully Herbig, "Stefan und Bully gegen irgendeinen Schnulli," which also flopped. A similar disaster could now befall Raab with the Eurovision Song Contest (ESC), after he was chosen by ARD in cooperation with RTL as a savior, hoping that Germany might once again achieve a top-five finish in Basel. Here, too, a glorious past collides with a very different present—pop and ESC present in this case. "Baller" by Abor & Tynna blasts along quite well, but a certain insignificance is unmistakable; the subtext is tired, with no trace of originality. Raab's promise isn't one at all; his knack for good pop songs is merely a claim. So what if Germany finishes a solid 15th? Then it all came to an end at the ESC – and the four years he still has under contract with RTL will be four very long and very sad ones.