Soccer sets German ratings record

National team prove a hit with female auds

By ED MEZA

BERLIN — The first semi-finals of the Euro 2008 soccer tournament reached new ratings highs as nearly 33 million viewers tuned in to watch Germany beat Turkey 3-2 on Wednesday night.

The match garnered peak figures of 32.7 million with average viewership at 29.4 million and a market share of 81.5%, not including millions of viewers who attended pubic viewing venues. It not only set a new ratings record for the current tournament, but also broke the all time record reached during the Euro 1996 final, when Germany beat the Czech Republic to become third-time champions.

By comparison, 19.2 million (60%) watched Spain's 3-0 decimation of Russia on Thursday night. That match nevertheless scored the best ratings in the tournament by a non-German match.

The 2008 European Championships have made surprising inroads in gender demographics, clearly seen in the Germany-Turkey match as more women than men tuned in to watch. According to German research org Media Control, the game attracted 14.1 million female viewers aged 14 and above (a 76.3% market share) compared to 13.4 million male viewers (86.2%).

While the 2006 World Cup illustrated soccer’s growing appeal among all auds, the German national team’s star pin-ups Michael Ballack and Lukas Podolski certainly haven’t hurt the sport’s stud quotient.

With some three million residents in Germany of Turkish descent, the match divided neighborhoods and communities throughout the country as German and Turkish flags competed for space in major Turkish enclaves in Berlin, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Munich and the Rhine-Ruhr region.

The game, held in Basel, Switzerland, managed record ratings despite the loss of the feed to TV stations worldwide after a thunderstorm cut power supplies to the Intl. Broadcast Center in Vienna.