Günther Johannes Jauch (German pronunciation: [ˈɡʏntɐ joˈhanəs ˈjaʊx]; born 13 July 1956) is a German television presenter, television producer, and journalist, best known as the longtime host of Wer wird Millionär?, the German version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?
Jauch is known for a unique style of informing and entertaining people that is generally considered witty and funny. He won several awards for his appearances in German television. Jauch also owns the production company "i&u TV", which stands for Information und Unterhaltung ("information and entertainment"). He is known to make large donations to charity from money he receives from his appearances in advertisements and other promotional work.
Jauch has used his personal wealth to purchase and restore several historic buildings in and around Potsdam, his current town of residence.
In the 1980s, Jauch worked for radio programs of Bayerischer Rundfunk. Jauch has produced and hosted the prime time TV programme stern TV, a television news magazine programme, on the private German RTL national TV network since 1990. The programme caused some sensation due to the transmission of falsified articles delivered by the journalist Michael Born who was subsequently convicted to a four-year prison sentence in 1996, a few other prominent German TV networks had also been deceived with such material. In January 2011, after celebrating the end of his 21-year reign hosting stern TV, Jauch will now host a weekly political talkshow on the national German public TV network Das Erste ("The First").
In 2005, Jauch was named by Stern magazine the most famous German in the world. In late 2006, Jauch announced that he would only host the first broadcast of the Four Hills Tournament (from Oberstdorf) and celebrate New Year's Eve with his family. Jauch had hosted all events of the Four Hills Tournament since 2000. The 2007 season tournaments from Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Innsbruck and Bischofshofen were hosted by Marco Schreyl instead.
Jauch, together with Thomas Gottschalk, is also part of the German TV show Die 2 – Gottschalk und Jauch gegen alle.
In 2015, shortly after Stefan Raab announced the end of his TV career, Jauch declared publicly that he intended to gradually reduce his TV appearances; stating that he will eventually give up his political talk show Günther Jauch on ARD and to focus on his other TV shows such as Wer wird Millionär? on RTL.
