Stefan Raab

Stefan Konrad Raab (born 20 October 1966) is a German television producer, businessman, and former entertainer and television host.

Raab began working as a freelance producer and composer of jingles and radio commercials in 1990 at his own studio in Cologne.

Raab began his TV career hosting the comedy show Vivasion in 1993.

Raab became popular in Germany as the host of the comedy show Vivasion for German music television channel VIVA from 1993 to 1998.

He became well known in 1994 after composing a hit single spoofing national football coach Berti Vogts.

From 1994 onwards, he produced a number of popular songs, including "Böörti Böörti Vogts" (a song about Berti Vogts), "Hier kommt die Maus" ("Here comes the mouse", a tribute to the children's television series Die Sendung mit der Maus), "Maschen-Draht-Zaun", "Wir kiffen", "Gebt das Hanf frei!"

("Legalise Dope!", featuring Shaggy and samples from German politician Hans-Christian Ströbele), "Hol' mir ma' 'ne Flasche Bier" ("Get me a bottle o' beer", containing samples from then-chancellor Gerhard Schröder), and "Space Taxi" from the soundtrack of the film Traumschiff Surprise – Periode 1.

Raab is also known for his recurring role as producer, writer and performer of German entries to the Eurovision Song Contest between 1998 and 2012.

He wrote the song for the German entry to the Eurovision Song Contest 1998, Guildo Horn's "Guildo hat euch lieb!", and in the Eurovision Song Contest 2000 he took part himself, performing the nonsense song "Wadde hadde dudde da?".

From 1999 to 2015, he hosted the late-night comedy talk show TV total and has also created a number of other television shows, such as Schlag den Raab and Bundesvision Song Contest.

In 1999, he created TV total which began airing in April 2001 on ProSieben, four times a week.

While TV total started as a comedy format mainly showing and satirizing funny and embarrassing sequences from other television programs, it soon came to be more of a late night show featuring musical performances—in some ways similar to The Tonight Show with Jay Leno or Late Night with Conan O'Brien.

After a boxing match against Regina Halmich in 2001 (rematch 2007) and a speed skating race against Claudia Pechstein in 2002, he also created several other celebrity sports events that are produced regularly, including TV total Turmspringen (high diving) and TV total Stock Car Crash Challenge (stock car racing).

He also brought fun and variety to the show by invented new sports: In November 2003, he initiated the first "official" World Wok racing Championship in Winterberg, Germany.

Modified Chinese woks are used to make timed runs down an Olympic bobsled track.

Raab lives in a suburb of Cologne and has two daughters (born 2004 and 2006) with his girlfriend Nike.

Other than this, very little is known about Raab, who deliberately hides his private life from the media.

Raab cast the German entry for the 2004 Eurovision Song Contest in a talent show contest called SSDSGPS ("Stefan sucht den Super-Grand-Prix-Star", "Stefan seeks the super Grand-Prix star", satirising the title of the German Idol series Deutschland sucht den Superstar, DSDS).

The winner, Max Mutzke, came in eighth place.

Bored with the Eurovision Song Contest, Raab came up with the Bundesvision Song Contest in 2005 (Bundesrepublik Deutschland = Federal Republic of Germany).

The contest features representatives from each of the 16 states of Germany and stipulates that their song has to be at least partly in German.

In 2006, Raab invented the game show Schlag den Raab (German for "Beat the Raab", remade for British television as Beat the Star and as Beat Your Host in several other European countries), in which he competed against a contestant in various disciplines.

Some episodes of the show lasted more than five hours with excellent ratings.

Raab frequently organizes PokerStars.de Nacht, a poker event featuring some celebrity names in German entertainment.

The first Autoball EM — Autoball being a version of football played in cars and using an exercise ball to score goals — took place in 2007.

In 2009, Raab was approached by the public broadcaster NDR, a member of the ARD broadcasting consortium, to jointly organise a national preselection in order to determine the German entry for the Eurovision Song Contest 2010.

It was revealed that Raab initially refused the request, but that his television network ProSieben accepted the offer to work with ARD/NDR.

In the early 2010s, Raab was considered the "most powerful man in German entertainment television".

He was the initiator of the national pre-selection show Unser Star für Oslo ("Our Star for Oslo"), in which Germany's winning entry at the 2010 contest in Oslo was determined.

The championship took place annually until March 2011, in Innsbruck.

In September 2012, he announced that he would be hosting a new talk show on ProSieben which would include political guests.

It began airing on 11 November 2012.

It stood in direct competition with the self-titled talk show hosted by Günther Jauch.

In September 2013, Raab was one of four hosts (one from each big television network) at the federal election debate between chancellor Angela Merkel and her challenger Peer Steinbrück.

In 2015, Raab ended his career in front of the camera, and by 2018 started focusing entirely on production work.

Raab grew up in Cologne with his sister and their parents, who owned a butcher's shop.

He attended Jesuit boarding school Aloisiuskolleg in Bonn.

Before entering the entertainment business, he completed an apprenticeship as a butcher in his parents' shop and studied law before dropping out of university after five semesters.

In mid-2015, Raab announced his retirement from television and stated that he would remain hosting until the end of the year.

The last episode of his show TV total aired on 16 December and the last episode of Schlag den Raab aired on 19 December 2015.