- 17 days of Olympic TV: excitement, odds, crashes, upheaval
The Olympic Games were a television festival for German sports fans. The popularity was evident in impressive figures for the 17 days of extensive television broadcasts and ten parallel internet streams on ARD and ZDF. "The enthusiasm for these Olympic Games was as great as it has been for a long time," commented ZDF sports chief Yorck Polus. "Only Olympia offers this sporting diversity, only at this event do people reliably watch us from morning till midnight."
The Enthusiasm
ARD and ZDF showed 243 hours of live coverage from Paris alone on traditional television and, according to their own figures, reached an average of 3.62 million viewers over this period. The market share was 30.9 percent. This was more than twice as much as the games in Tokyo, which were held in a different time zone. "The broadcasts were very successful," said ARD sports coordinator Axel Balkausky. "Olympia manages to combine everything. That's typical of the Games: People take in the entire program and don't just watch individual disciplines."
Similar television figures were last seen at the 2012 Games in London. The difference from then is the change in the use of the internet offer. By Saturday, the live streams in the media libraries of ARD and ZDF had been called up around 225 million times, corresponding to 65 million usage hours. "The digital numbers have exploded, the offer has never been used as much," explained the ARD sports chief. "It has exceeded all expectations, both linear and digital," raved Balkausky. Unlike with traditional television, he noted: "Even younger people watched a lot."
The Figures
The top value of the Games was already achieved on the first day with the ARD broadcast of the opening ceremony, with an average of 10.44 million viewers and a market share of 45.5 percent. According to ARD and ZDF, this was the most-watched broadcast at the Olympic Games in 20 years. In the following 16 days of sports broadcasts, 8.01 million viewers tuned in to athletics. Especially in the evenings, more than six million people watched for a longer period of time. For comparison: At the Games in Tokyo, the summary of tennis player Alexander Zverev's final victory was the most successful show with 4.5 million viewers.
Even on the last day of the Olympics in Paris, the Games were a huge ratings hit. The more than three-hour closing ceremony was watched by an average of 7.778 million people on ZDF, resulting in a market share of 40.5 percent. It was by far the most successful TV show of the day.
The Frustration
In the early days of the Olympics, there was some criticism of the image direction - from viewers, but also from TV reporters live on air. The reason was the signal produced by the host broadcaster OBS for the International Olympic Committee (IOC). ARD reporter Bernd Schmelzer, who commented on the first game of the German women's football team against the USA in the live stream, described the image direction on the X platform as "adventurous."
The responsible persons of the German broadcasters were also annoyed and complained about the mistakes at OBS. "They accepted the criticism and corrected themselves," reported the ARD sports chief. Balkausky also pointed out internationally different concepts for sports reporting and praised: "Overall, there were incredibly many great pictures." However, he was annoyed by the organizers' decision to hold the triathlon and open water swimming competitions at the polluted Seine as the venue: "They should have decided in favor of the athletes and against the pictures."
Even public broadcasters ARD and ZDF made mistakes that were heavily criticized on internet platforms. For instance, "What didn't go well," said the ZDF sports chief, "was the error during the 3x3 basketball broadcast, where we cut away just before the end of the semi-final. We immediately apologized for that."
Given the scale of 243 hours on TV and around 1500 hours online, the criticism was manageable, according to ARD and ZDF. "With such a large volume of broadcasts, it's unfortunately not impossible for a mistake to happen," said Polus. "Even if you make the right decision 99 times, that one mistake tends to stick in people's minds."
- The enthusiasm for the Olympic Games in Paris was palpable, with ARD and ZDF reports indicating an average of 3.62 million viewers and a market share of 30.9% during the 243 hours of live coverage on traditional television.
- The digital enthusiasm was also evident, as ARD reported that the live streams in their media libraries were called up around 225 million times, corresponding to 65 million usage hours, during the Games in Paris.
