First time

Victory in the ratings derby! ServusTV outperforms ORF

The two ServusTV experts Jan Age Fjörtoft (left) and Steffen Freund

(Bild: ServusTV/Philipp Carl Riedl)

ServusTV has every reason to celebrate: As the teletext data shows, the market share of the Salzburg-based private channel more than doubled in June thanks to the European Football Championship. With 11.3 percent, ServusTV was ahead of ORF 1 for the first time in the station's history with its best month ever. The public broadcaster also increased its market share considerably compared to the same month last year to 9.5 percent, but had fewer and sometimes moderately attractive European Championship matches on offer.

ServusTV was the second strongest channel in Austria after ORF 2 (18.6% market share) thanks to the expensively acquired rights to the European Football Championship. In the core target group of 12- to 49-year-olds, the private broadcaster was even at the top with a market share of 14.5 percent. The matches of the Austrian national team were by far the most popular: The games against France and the Netherlands were watched by an average of 1.7 million viewers. However, the match between Spain and Georgia in the round of 16 also broke the million mark with an average of 1.1 million viewers. Away from the European Championships, the Formula 1 GP in Spielberg (733,000 viewers) brought ServusTV high ratings.

ORF also increases
Thanks to the European Football Championships, ORF 1 also recorded a strong increase of over two percentage points in both the overall and core target groups. The second half of the extra time between England and Slovakia was the most watched match with 1.3 million viewers. Away from sport, the third season of "Soko Linz", for example, performed to the station's satisfaction with an average of 426,000 viewers.

ORF 2, on the other hand, unsurprisingly went downhill. This was mitigated by the EU election coverage, which was watched at least briefly by 3.3 million viewers (widest viewing audience) on election night. On June 9, "ZiB", including the first debate between the leading candidates, was watched by around 1.4 million viewers. ORF III broadcast from the Vienna Danube Island Festival, among other things, with Wolfgang Ambros' performance being the most watched with an average of 143,000 viewers. This was followed by Christina Stürmer (117,000) and Andreas Vitasek (100,000). Overall, the ORF Group remained largely stable with a market share of 31.4 percent (-0.2 percentage points).

Private declines
The ProSiebenSat.1Puls4 Group recorded mostly slight declines on all four of its Austrian stations (ATV, Puls 4, Puls 24, ATV2). This was most pronounced at ATV, which slipped to 2.2 percent in the overall target group and 3.5 percent in the focused core target group. With a season of "Ausnahmezustand in Lignano - Tutto Gas" (13.1 percent market share in the core target group), the private channel performed above average. Puls 4 landed just ahead of ATV in both target groups (2.3 percent and 3.9 percent market share respectively). The program with the highest reach was the EU election debate with the leading candidates. An average of 168,000 viewers watched it, with the program also being shown in parallel on Puls 24 and thus achieving a total market share of 12.3 percent.

There were hardly any losses for Puls 24 and ATV2. Oe24.tv, the channel of the Austrian media group, also remained stable in the overall target group with a market share of 1.4 percent.