On Saturday, Dieter Bohlen announced during the live show “good news”: Deutschland sucht den Superstar will continue in 2024. The show aired on April 1, and many viewers initially thought the announcement was an April Fool’s joke. No wonder, because this decision is not a backwards roll, but a complete somersault. In the summer of last year, RTL announced the end of the casting show after its 20th anniversary season. The acclaimed promise didn’t even last 9 months.
Dieter Bohlen can of course also be part of the new star search in 2024. The head of the jury was dismissed before the penultimate season when RTL wanted to gain a fundamentally more positive image – to which the obscene and rowdy planks did not fit. He should only be supposed for that final season of the show’s history to return. Now everything is back to normal and all positive resolutions have been thrown overboard. What shoud that? We had it all behind us!
Dieter Bohlen brought quotas and sexism back to DSDS
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“Both on RTL and on RTL+, the popularity was above our expectations and well above the previous year’s values. This positive response has prompted us to continue with ‘DSDS’ in 2024“Said Inga Leschek, program director of RTL and RTL+. Translated: the ratings were so good that RTL simply could not resist.
And the quotas brought back Dieter Bohlen. The broadcaster now openly capitulates to the jury boss and everything he embodies. On the one hand, that is range. When RTL tried it two years ago without Bohlen in the DSDS jury and with a softer approach, viewership plummeted. With his return, the quotas rose again – together with the usual humiliation of participants and sometimes gross sexism. In the current season, Bohlen countered the candidate Jill Lange: “Did you do anything normal? Or did you just graduate school and let yourself be fed?” Jury colleague Katja Krasavice disagreed, and soon thereafter a serious argument broke out between the two.
The broadcaster initially defended Bohlen’s behavior. Rather reluctantly, RTL cut the sentence from the free TV version, the complete scene could only be seen on the streaming service RTL +. RTL later admitted the “mistake”. But this kind of behavior is obviously desirable.
In retrospect, Dieter Bohlen’s return campaign looks like a Trojan horse: RTL smuggled the “Pop Titan” back into the show under the pretext that it was only for the last season. What do you not do under the influence of sentimentality. Now he’s back. But forever.
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In the future of DSDS, there is a risk of absolute freedom from planks for fools
The Bohlen, who was once chased from the farm, could hardly have wished for a better confirmation than the extension of the show. He can now act as DSDS savior boast. The sequence of events also strengthens the man’s freedom of fools, whom RTL absolutely wanted to get rid of two years ago.
Bohlen has not changed and will not change. How does RTL want to stop him in the future if the existence of the show is so tied to his involvement and ultimately his toxic behavior? How does the broadcaster want to slow him down and credibly distance himself in the future if he is apparently ready for a few chunks of quota to tolerate Bohlen’s behavior? Will RTL intervene when the next Jill Lange is in front of Bohlen and herself in 2024
Comments about her sex life have to listen to? Difficult to imagine. As long as Dieter Bohlen is there, misogyny and the devaluation of the weaker will remain the norm at DSDS. With the continuation of the show in this form, RTL sends a terrible signal.
Of course it’s true: RTL fills several hours of programming with DSDS between January and May when the show is on. Ultimate failure would leave a massive hole. In times of generally falling quotas, the decision is understandable. In the medium term, DSDS will help the broadcaster. How much RTL really gets back for this decision is questionable. The number of viewers in the current star search is higher than in the previous year without Dieter Bohlen. But they are far below all other Bohlen seasons in front of them.
So the trend is also pointing downwards with the so-called pop titan. However, the broadcaster does not look into the future anyway. He proved that impressively with the revival of the DSDS show zombie.