Normally, no other television programs are as popular as live coverage of major football tournaments. But the World Cup in Qatar is experiencing an unprecedented slump in ratings in Germany. Experts see various reasons.
The data are sobering for ARD and ZDF. The number of spectators at the World Cup in Qatar is lower than ever. After the first knockout round, the interim balance is clear: in the round of 16, the minus compared to the 2018 World Cup in Russia is more than 50 percent.
It’s a vote with the remote control – not against the broadcasters, but against the World Cup. Even in the preliminary round, the figures from AGF Videoforschung showed the disinterest and boycott mood of many football fans. Only 4.802 million watched the live broadcasts of the group games on ARD and ZDF on average, compared to 9.254 million four years ago.
After the German team was eliminated, the minus in the first phase of the knockout phase is even clearer: 4.775 instead of 9.997. “Many people have stayed consistent,” commented ARD sports coordinator Axel Balkausky on the figures. “Looked at over several weeks, the numbers are still extraordinary, and that also applies to young viewers,” said Balkausky. After all, Portugal’s 6-1 win over Switzerland was the day’s most-watched show with 5.82 million viewers on Tuesday evening. So millions continue to watch – only there are significantly fewer than before.
Live broadcasts of major soccer tournaments have so far reached a level that no other format can even begin to deliver. In 2018, the German team’s World Cup games had an average of more than 25 million TV viewers. In the three games of this World Cup, however, the value was not even 15 million.
Media scientist Jana Wiske explained the reasons for the slump in ratings: “A World Cup in the hectic pre-Christmas period doesn’t create the kind of football atmosphere that develops in the summer, for example, with lots of outdoor public viewing opportunities.” In addition, from the point of view of the professor at Ansbach University, many people “are increasingly rejecting this extreme form of commercialization of football: the sum of the grievances surrounding the World Cup in Qatar and the dubious role of FIFA was too much for a large proportion of football fans, a boycott attitude has really taken root.”
The Cologne media expert Christoph Bertling sees it similarly. “Normally football World Cups connect, they are considered huge social campfires,” explained the scientist from the Cologne Sport University. But “this World Cup is a divisive factor. It polarizes.” In his view, the main reasons are the “unusual transmission time in the winter, a very strong politicization and a lack of public viewing”.
Although the number of viewers of the digital offers from ARD/ZDF is increasing, it cannot compensate for the decline in traditional television. The data from the public broadcasters for the Internet and media libraries cannot be compared directly with the TV numbers, but ARD man Balkausky calculates that there are an average of around 2.5 million additional viewers online for German games. On the other hand, the countless millions who celebrate at public viewings and follow the games at summer tournaments are missing this year. These World Cup viewers also do not appear in the TV figures from AGF Videoforschung.