In the ratings duel between the traditional television formats “Tatort” and “Dream Ship”, which is common at Easter and Christmas, the second one emerged first on Easter Sunday.
However, the ZDF format, which has been broadcast since 1981, achieved one of its weakest reach ever with fewer than 5 million viewers. Only Christmas 2023 was even worse with the episode “Utah”.
The “Dream Ship” episode “Phuket” about Captain Parger (Florian Silbereisen) and his crew was watched by an average of 4.96 million viewers on ZDF on Sunday evening, which corresponded to a market share of 20.6 percent as of 8:15 p.m.
The simultaneous broadcast by ARD of “Tatort: Schattenleben” (2022) with the NDR investigators Falke and Grosz (Wotan Wilke Möhring and Franziska Weisz) saw an average of 4.53 million (18.8 percent) on the first.
ZDF is also successful with young viewers
However, the industry service “DWDL.de” emphasized on Easter Monday that ZDF could be satisfied with the “Dream Ship” market share. The station was also successful with young television consumers. “780,000 viewers between the ages of 14 and 49 ensured a strong 17.0 percent market share and the day’s victory in this age group. Incidentally, there was a pretty significant increase here year-on-year, by almost 4 percentage points.”
Overall, however, the social reality is that compared to the past, far fewer people watch linear television. With a smaller reach (i.e. viewers in millions), this can mean a higher audience rating (market share in percent) than, for example, five or ten years ago.
Last year on Easter Sunday, “Tatort” was in the lead in the ratings duel between ARD and ZDF: At that time, ARD did not send a repeat into the race, but rather a new Sunday crime thriller – the first case of the new Berlin Commissioner Susanne Bonard (Corinna Harfouch). the page of RBB investigator Karow (Mark Waschke).
This time there was at least a new “crime scene” on the ARD program on Easter Monday at prime time: the Bremen case “Fear in the Dark”.