7:15pm UK time,
Pro Sieben or naughty internet streaming
Tweet us with #bbsdr or leave Youtube comments on the commentary stream.
Again, AGAIN, for the forty-first time in fact it’s time for German überstar Stefan Raab to defend his money from people who would try and claim it, and tonight there’s a whopping €1.5m in the jackpot. And once again we’ll be providing an English language commentary which will run about ten seconds behind your internet stream of choice, and about thirty seconds behind the actual broadcast.
We know.
Still it’s normally quite good fun, and tonight’s musical guests include Hurts, Gentleman and ZAZ.
Tonight should be extra exciting, because Fifty 50 Show’s Lewis Murphy has gone through ALL the old episodes and taken notes so at least one of us this evening should sound more knowledgeable than normal.
Once again you are encouraged to join in the fun by tweeting with the hashtag #bbsdr or leaving comments on the Youtube stream, either of which will get picked up by us in the studio (we’re not in a studio) and we’ll read out the best things. The show starts at 7:15pm UK time, although the first 45 minutes is picking a contestant, the games start proper around 8pm. Recently it’s tended to finish around midnight, but it’s an open ended live show so it could finish later than that.
This is the stream we will probably be using to commentate on.
Here’s our live stream link! [Part 2] – open in a new stream to listen.
We’re limited to broadcasting in four hour bursts, so around 10pm we will need close down our first stream and start a fresh one. This will happen during an ad break or musical interlude, and we will update on here and on Twitter with the new addresses as soon as we can.
If you’re new to Schlag den Raab then welcome! I’ve included a basic FAQ under the cut.
What is Schlag den Raab?
Schlag den Raab (Beat Raab!) is a German TV show on six times a year where members of the public take on TV personality Stefan Raab in a series of games for a lifechanging cash prize – €500,000. If Raab wins, the money rolls over. The action is broken up by musical guests.
Who is Stefan Raab?
Part Jonathan Ross, part Simon Cowell, Stefan Raab is one of Germany’s most popular TV personalities. The show he is probably most famous for is weekly chat show TV Total, but elements of this have spun off into their own shows – annual wok racing championships (it’s going down a bobsled run on a wok), celebrity diving, celebrity stock cars… all sorts of things. He’s also a song writer who has competed in the Eurovision Song Contest and runs the German Song Contest. It was a Stefan Raab show that found Lena, of Satellite fame. And he’s competitive, very competitive.
How does it work?
Five contestants limber up and the public decides who will be the evening’s challenger through a live telephone vote. Contestant chosen, they will face-off against Raab in up to fifteen games – the first game is worth 1pt, the 2nd two all the way up to game 15 worth 15 points. With 120 points on offer, the winner is the first player to reach 61 points. At least 11 games have to be played (that will get you 66 points, and yes there have been 66-0 shutouts) but with the big points towards the end you’re rarely out of contention.
What sort of things do they do?
Literally anything could come up but there are a few things you can bet will happen:
- Three or four rounds are likely to be quiz rounds. The formats differ each time. You can guarantee Blamerien oder Kassieren will turn up starring Raab’s TV Total colleague Elton (this is a quiz they play on TV Total).
- There is usually some sort of driving event, usually in the form of a time trial.
- There will be three or four events based around sports, sometimes straight but usually a variation of something known.
- There’s usually some sort of strategy game.
- Almost certainly a hard test of mental agility and memory.
- The rest defy pigeonholing and are often wildly inventive. You’ll just have to watch and see!
Isn’t this just Beat the Star with Vernon Kay?
This is the show Beat the Star was based on. The main differences are it’s the same opponent each episode, the games tend to go on a bit longer, and the show can be on for five to seven hours. And it’s all completely LIVE.
How did it start?
The legend has it (i.e. we read somehwere) Raab invited a female boxer onto TV Total, and then joked that she couldn’t hurt him. She gave him a black eye. A format was born.
As a first time SdR’er (does that work as a term?), I’ll be watching with interest… but also for Hurts. Favourite band right now is Hurts…
I’m sure you’ll enjoy it. It’s certainly the highlight of a Saturday evening for me
Can I propose the term Schlager?
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Monday 20th May on C4:
12:40 – 1001 Things You Should Know 😮
14:10 – Four Rooms
15:10 – Countdown
16:00 – DoND
Christ. That’s a demotion for 1001 Things.
A big demotion – still, 12.40pm is still better than burning off the rest of the series somewhere in the mid-morning over on More4
I would agree. If we idly thought it might be an idea to put on Countdown at lunchtime – well 1001 Things… now has that honour, so it will be interesting to see how it does there at least.
Actually another thing: Four Rooms was meant to be stripped as two runs of fifteen episodes, I believe. So they appear to be moving straight on to the other one on May 20th. Is that good or bad?
There were three days of Horse Racing in the week just gone and this week coming so it wasn’t/isn’t on – so Mon 20th will be episode 10 if I’ve got my Maths right.
Ah! Well spotted, thanks.
For completeness, “Sarah Beeny’s Selling Houses” fills the oh-so-important 1.40 slot in the 20 May week. Brig’s right, provisional schedules suggest “Four Rooms” ends that week. There are afternoon films in the 27 May week, with more hoss racing on Friday 31 May, eating into Deal or No Deal’s time.
Part 1, for posterity:
Here’s part two:
http://youtu.be/MJLHNriWYEs
We had some issues with YouTube comments this evening, we hope it didn’t ruin your enjoyment too much. Thanks to all who listened and commented.
14th of September is the next one, not the 21st! Great commentary tonight.
Cheers, thought it felt a lot better, although I thought the games were good tonight as well.
Certainly were. Quite a few new games. Loved Blind Parking and the ‘Tiddlywink-Shift’ end game.
Thanks James,
Just wondering, is Schlag den Star back this summer?
Certainly is. 4 new episodes recording in June. I’ll post the details when I get them.
Will post the ratings for SdR in the morning.
Stars for Schlag den Star announced;
Sven Hannawald – former ski-jumping Olympic Champion
Dr Christine Theiss – world champion kickboxer and TV presenter
Matze Knop – comedian
Tom Beck – actor
It starts on Saturday the 22nd of June at 7.15pm UK time.
Yay at last – I’ve actually heard of one of the four stars. Sven the Ski Jumper!
Nice to see Beat The Star, sorry, Schlag Den Star, is back and on a Saturday (the past couple of series have been in the same slot on a Friday night) and in a way, is slightly better than SDR as it’s pre-recorded, so has some of the waffle edited down, a shorter target score to win, and is all over in just a bit under two hours.
Sorry that the ratings are a little late. I was distracted by something else yesterday.
SdR got 2.86m and a 12.8% share. In the 14-49 demo it got 1.82m and a 20.2% share.
Whilst it was low, it was up against the final of DSDS (German Pop Idol). DSDS has been on the slide this year, but rallied back to do pretty well in its last show. Also, ARD was showing a crime drama that rated quite well.
In fairness, this was the only Saturday that they could put it on before the Summer break, as last week was a bit too early. Here are the other reasons;
• 18th May – Eurovision Song Contest
• 25th May – Champions League Final (all-German)
• 1st June – German Cup Final
All of the above will rate quite well (particularly the CL final) and Raab goes on his summer break on the 29th of May.