Outstanding TV ratings
So many people saw the European Championship kick-off
Many millions of Germans watched the start of the European Championships not only at public viewings, but also at home.
© imago/Markus Matzel
Great start for the DFB team at the home European Championship with a convincing 5:1 win against Scotland. Over 22 million people watched the game on TV.
A wave of football euphoria is sweeping through Germany. The reason: the outstanding performance of the German DFB team at the start of the European Championships at home against the overwhelmed Scottish team. At the end, a 5:1 victory was displayed on the huge scoreboard in Munich’s Allianz Arena. The first evening of the European Championships was also a great success for the broadcaster ZDF. If you dare to take a look at the viewing figures alone. As AGF Video Research in cooperation with GfK reports, an outstanding 22.49 million people watched the broadcast on the public broadcaster.
The Telekom streaming service MagentaTV also showed the game, which in reality resulted in a significantly higher number of viewers showing interest in the DFB team. What was special was that with almost 22.5 million people watching on TV, the opening game of the European Championship in Germany attracted more viewers to their screens than any game during the controversial World Cup in Qatar.
This meant that ZDF was of course the clear winner of the day. All of the programs surrounding the ZDF broadcast of the game naturally benefited from the enormous interest in the start of the European Championship. For example, the opening ceremony with almost 15 million viewers and the follow-up reports, with around 10.8 million people in front of their screens.
Saturday matches of the European Championship on Das Erste and MagentaTV
Naturally, no other channel could compete on Friday evening. For comparison: Das Erste only got around 2.5 million viewers with “Die Undertakerin – Zweieinhalb Tote”. On Saturday, the European Championships continue in Germany. Das Erste will take over and show the match between Spain and Croatia at 6 p.m. and the match between Italy and Albania at 9 p.m. MagentaTV will broadcast the match between Hungary and Switzerland from the German group exclusively at 3 p.m.