Only 9.23 million Germans followed, Wednesday afternoon on the public channel ARD, the defeat of Germany against Japan (2-1) for the first match of the Mannschaft at the World Cup in Qatar, i.e. 59.7% of audience share. In comparison, in 2018, the Germans' first match in Russia against Mexico (1-0 defeat), when they were reigning world champions, attracted nearly 26 million viewers, or 81.6% from audience share.
Across the Rhine, where calls to boycott the World Cup in Qatar have been very numerous, audiences since the start of the World Cup have been in free fall. The opening match between Qatar and Ecuador was watched on Sunday, November 20 on ZDF by only 6.21 million viewers (less than 30% audience share), while in the summer of 2018, 10 million viewers had watched the first match of the World Cup between Russia and Saudi Arabia.
In France, the first match of the French team achieved a score comparable, in number of viewers, to that of 2018 with 12.53 million viewers on Tuesday against 12.6 million four years earlier (Satellifacts, November 23). On the other hand, in particular because of their broadcast times (9 p.m. on a Tuesday vs. 12 p.m. on a Saturday), the PDAs show a big difference: 48.1% this year compared to 69% in 2018.