DThe German national soccer team at the European championship achieved the tournament’s highest audience rating to date and at the same time led to criticism. An average of 27.36 million people watched the live broadcast of the 2-0 defeat against England on Tuesday evening on ARD. The market share was 76.5 percent. The previous best value of the EM was the 25.74 million (71.4 percent) in the preliminary round tie against Hungary on ZDF.
ARD sports coordinator Axel Balkausky rejected criticism of the interviews after the national team left the European Championship on Wednesday. “Jessy Wellmer and Bastian Schweinsteiger managed to treat Joachim Löw with respect without being uncritical about the situation,” said Balkausky of the German press agency. “The interview was very challenging for everyone involved, as it meant the end of the Löw era and it also affected the national coach noticeably.”
After the 2-0 draw and the disappointing end of the Löw era, there was criticism, among other things, of Wellmer’s formulation “That ends well, everything goes well”. The sports coordinator said: “She formulated a question that was called:“ All’s well that ends well – or not all well? ”This may have been abbreviated in the noise on the television, but she expressly formulated it as a question. “
Viewers irritated and angry
Several media had criticized the interview. In the social networks, too, many users were irritated and angry. Switching directly to the news after the game was over also led to criticism. “We thought it appropriate to switch to the main edition of the ‘Tagesschau’ at the usual time at 8:00 pm after the end of the game,” said the ARD program director.
The interviews didn’t see as many people as the game itself. After the defeat in London, most people no longer felt like playing football: more than two thirds of TV viewers switched to or from it. Only 7.89 million people (33.8 percent) watched the coverage of the German team after the 2-0 draw.
The live broadcast of the game Sweden vs. Ukraine had the fewest TV viewers at 8.08 million (34.2 percent) for the 9 p.m. games in the knockout phase. There are no figures for Telekom’s transmissions via the paid MagentaTV service.
Meanwhile, ZDF will broadcast the top match in the quarter-finals between Belgium and Italy in Munich on Friday (9 p.m.). Before that, ZDF will show the encounter between Switzerland and Spain (6 p.m.) from St. Petersburg. The two quarter-finals on Saturday will be broadcast on ARD. At 6 p.m. the Czech Republic will play against Denmark in Baku. Then Ukraine will meet England in Rome (9:00 p.m.). The public TV channels announced this division on Wednesday. All games also run on the paid Telecom service MagentaTV, as well as in the FAZ live ticker for the European Football Championship.
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