In its 24th year of run, the show still has between 12 and 15 million viewers in Germany and is considered Europe's most successful TV show. Therefore, a lot of international movie and music stars appear.
The show's concept was sold to many other countries like Italy, Turkey or the United Kingdom. It has the biggest audience in China, where over 100 million watch "Xiang tiaozhan ma?".
Crew and audience alike were stunned on 1 April 2006 when, at the end of the show, just before the credits rolled, the host announced that he was retiring immediately. Anyone noting the date realized the prank, but for those who didn't, German news reported on the gag the next day.
Production costs for each episode were between 2 million and 2.5 million euros.
The episode with the most viewers was episode 26 from February 9, 1985, which was watched by 23.42 million people in West Germany. The episode with the least viewers was episode 213 from October 4, 2014, which was watched by 5.48 million people.