The TV key figures for the soccer World Cup in Germany are still well below those of previous tournaments. In the semifinals between world champions France and outsiders Morocco, the ten million mark was reached for the first time in this tournament without the participation of the German team.
France’s victory over Morocco in the semifinals broke the ten million mark on TV and provided the best ratings of a game at the World Cup in Qatar without German participation. An average of 10.576 million people watched France’s 2-0 win on ZDF on Wednesday.
According to AGF Videoforschung, this corresponds to a market share of 36.1 percent. The live broadcast with the last appearance of commentator Béla Réthy was the most successful TV show of the day. Compared to other tournaments, interest in the World Cup in Qatar remains low. At the 2018 World Cup in Russia, 19.23 million people watched the semifinals between England and Croatia on TV, while 18.25 million people wanted to see the fight between France and Belgium for the final.
Apparently, many people are implementing their resolutions of not wanting to follow the controversial Winter World Cup in Qatar or only wanting to do so to a limited extent: According to a Forsa survey commissioned by RTL and ntv, more than half (54 percent) of all respondents had shortly before the start of the World Cup does not intend to follow games in the live broadcast.
The proportion of those who want to watch games at all – whether with or without German participation – is therefore significantly lower than four years ago at the 2018 World Cup. At that time, three quarters (76 percent) of all respondents wanted to watch at least part of the games . Even among those who are generally interested in football, more than one in four (28 percent) do not want to follow World Cup games.
After 62 of 64 games, Telekom also published viewer numbers for the first time. “With four million MagentaTV customers, we have regularly reached seven-digit usage figures per match day with our live reporting,” said Telekom TV boss Arnim Butzen in a statement. “In the case of the exclusive games, we even had more than 1.5 million viewers at the peak.”
Only the MagentaTV service, which is subject to a fee, shows all World Cup games. The exclusive broadcasts also include the match for third place between Croatia and Morocco on Saturday (4 p.m.). Telekom did not provide figures comparable to the ratings of ARD and ZDF.