Linear TV Ratings
Danish crime drama smashes German TV ratings records this week
A record 6.49 million viewers tuned in to ARD on Thursday evening for the fourth installment of its Danish Crime series, with the episode "The Woman in the Dunes" achieving an outstanding 28.7% market share. This shattered the previous series high of 23.2%, set during its premiere in October 2021. The public broadcaster's strong performance was also aided by ZDF's relative weakness: the debut of its new series The Maiwald drew just 3.00 million viewers and a 13.2% share—falling short of the network's 12-month average of 14.9%. Like Simply Elli before it, The Maiwald failed to match the ratings success of The Mountain Doctor in the same time slot. While Simply Elli still managed respectable shares of 16.3% and 14.7%, The Maiwald underperformed even those figures.
Among commercial broadcasters, Germany's Next Topmodel dominated the 8:15 PM slot. Though ProSieben's casting show didn't reach the 1.48 million viewers and 7.0% share of Wednesday's makeover episode, it still attracted 1.27 million viewers (6.1% share) on Thursday. For comparison, ProSieben's 12-month average now stands at just 2.7% in total viewership.
The night's flops included RTL's Mario Barth Presents: Comedy's Biggest Stars, which drew only 1.08 million viewers (5.2% share)—far below the network's expectations. Sat.1's Got the Look? fared even worse, with just 0.71 million viewers (3.5% share), while Vox's Infinite managed a similarly lackluster 0.79 million (3.6%). Kabel Eins's Australia Road Trip attracted 0.69 million viewers (3.2% share), and RTL II's Reeperbahn Uncensored! garnered a mere 0.39 million (1.8%).
In the key 14–49 demographic, Germany's Next Topmodel was the clear prime-time winner. Though it didn't match Wednesday's makeover episode (0.84 million viewers, 20.3% share), its 0.59 million viewers (15.6% share) still led the pack. The Danish Crime series followed with 0.30 million viewers (7.6% share), though these numbers posed little real competition to ProSieben's reality show.
Kabel Eins's Road Trip: Three Star Chefs on Four Wheels once again outperformed its network average, securing third place in prime-time ratings with 0.27 million viewers (6.7% share) in the 14–49 demographic. Vox's Infinite drew 0.25 million (6.4%), while The Maiwald matched that viewership but lagged behind ZDF's 12-month average of 7.9% with just 6.1%.
RTL's struggles continued after 8:15 PM, with Mario Barth Presents: Comedy's Biggest Stars flopping at 0.23 million viewers (6.0% share). Sat.1's Got the Look? also disappointed, pulling in 0.22 million (5.9%). RTL II's Reeperbahn Uncensored! barely scraped into the day's top 25, with 0.17 million viewers (4.4% share).
Netflix Charts
Both of Germany's daily Netflix rankings have new leaders. In the series chart, a fresh title rocketed straight to No. 1: the Norwegian crime drama Harry Hole, based on Jo Nesbø's bestselling novels. Its nine episodes, released Thursday, knocked the mega-hit One Piece—now at No. 2—off the top spot, while former runner-up Virgin River tumbled to No. 5. The crime documentary series Homicide: New York held steady at No. 3. Another new entry debuted at No. 6: the horror series Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen, produced by the Duffer Brothers (Stranger Things).
In the film rankings, the 2021 thriller The Little Things climbed to the top spot after its re-entry, having previously held second place. The Peaky Blinders gangster series special The Immortal Man dropped from first to second after six days, while the 2019 German romantic drama Beyond the Horizon (Dem Horizont so nah) remained in third. Two new entries appeared at eighth and tenth: the 2023 German horror film Home Sweet Home and the 2023 comic book adaptation Blue Beetle.
Prime Video
Little changed in the German charts for Amazon's streaming service, with the same ten titles holding their positions from Thursday to Friday. The reality game show The 50 led the rankings, followed by the Sherlock Holmes prequel series Young Sherlock. The sci-fi thriller Mercy rose from fourth to third.
Disney
The three productions that recently dominated Disney+'s daily German series charts maintained their positions: The late sequel to the medical comedy Scrubs remained at the top, ahead of Marvel's Daredevil: Born Again—boosted by its second season—and the live-action adaptation of the legendary comic Lucky Luke.
In the film rankings, the animated blockbuster Zootopia 2 reclaimed the top spot, pushing Hannah Montana's 20th-anniversary special to second. The original Zootopia, however, dropped sharply from third to seventh. Meanwhile, the 2009 Hannah Montana: The Movie jumped from fourth to third, and Marvel's Avengers: Infinity War returned to the chart at tenth.
YouTube
Millions of Germans followed the dramatic rescue of a whale stranded in the Baltic Sea. A report on the ongoing operation, published by ZDFheute Nachrichten, topped Thursday's most-watched German-language videos with 1.4 million views. Der Spiegel took second place with around 700,000 views for its piece "VW's Downfall: Total Collapse at the Auto Giant," while the satirical channel Simplicissimus ranked third with "America's Strangest Serial Killer."
Sources for our data analysis: TV ratings are provided by AGF Videoforschung. Daily Netflix, Prime Video, and Disney+ charts—as well as weekly Sky rankings—are based on the streaming platforms' official listings. It should be noted that the methodology behind these charts remains undisclosed, and no specific viewer numbers are published. The rankings of the most-watched German-language YouTube videos are compiled by our editor-in-chief, Jens Schröder, in collaboration with the agency Active Value.
