If you turn on the news in the evening, you often only hear bad news during these times. Many viewers therefore prefer to switch off. The “Tagesschau” also noticed that.
The ARD news program “Tagesschau” recently turned on a little less viewers after a corona high. “We’re declining a bit in viewer numbers, but that’s whining at a very high level,” said Marcus Bornheim, the first editor-in-chief of the news television editorial team ARD-aktuell, the German Press Agency in Hamburg.
The daily viewing figures for the 8:00 p.m. news in the first to the third fell from around 11.7 million viewers in 2020 and 2021 to around 10.1 million viewers in 2022. That’s more than before Corona. In 2019, an average of 9.8 million people tuned in to the “Tagesschau” every day.
The “Tagesschau” compresses the suffering and misery
One reason for the slight decline is that many people are now actively avoiding news in view of the bad news from all over the world. “These people try to avoid news consumption or at least reduce it. After the corona crisis, the war, inflation, they basically don’t want to be confronted with it anymore.” And the 8:00 p.m. news would basically sum up the suffering and misery and badness of this world in a compressed way for them. “Then get another 15 minutes of bad news – people don’t want that anymore. We see that in our viewer numbers.”
The newsroom is responding to this with more solution-oriented approaches, including in the selection of topics, said Bornheim. “That means we are increasingly including pieces of culture and science. And when we talk about climate issues, we always try to look ahead.” For example, solutions to a climate problem or energy problem would also be presented. “These are things that we’re experimenting with and realizing that the audience really, really likes that.” Therefore, of course, there will still be a summary of the news day. “But finding a good mix is, I think, really crucial at the moment.”
The ARD “Tagesschau” has been on German television for 70 years. On December 26, 1952, it flickered across screens for the first time. Back then without a speaker. (dpa)