Huge Demand For Information On The Situation In Ukraine
German broadcasters RTL Deutschland and NTV continued to respond to the Russian invasion of Ukraine with extensive changes to their programming over the weekend and yesterday. The two channels’ joint special broadcasts reached 26.71 million people this past weekend. RTL and NTV continue to provide information and updates on the unfolding events with further special broadcasts.
The world is shaken by the dramatic events in Ukraine: RTL and NTV made extensive changes to their programming throughout the weekend to report on the worsening situation and keep viewers fully informed with round-the-clock live coverage. Yesterday, too, both stations cleared plenty of space for additional live programming. Since 12:25 a.m. just after midnight on Sunday night, the “RTL/NTV Special: War in Ukraine” has kept viewers in Germany abreast of the latest developments.
RTL and NTV’s extensive news coverage on the weekend attracted a great deal of interest: With their joint special broadcasts, RTL and NTV reached 26.71 million unique viewers aged 3 and older on Saturday and Sunday. On RTL alone, 13.4 percent of 14- to 49-year-olds watched the joint special from 9:00 AM on Saturday, and 14.7 percent tuned in from 3:00 PM onward. On Sunday, 13.1 percent (6:00 AM) and 15.4 percent (from 3:00 PM) of the young target audience were reached. The news channel NTV provided continuous information about the latest developments in Ukraine, even after 8:15 PM. On Sunday, a total of 10.18 million people tuned in to NTV (2.8 percent market share). Its daily market shares were 4.2 percent (14- to 49-year-olds) and 3.5 percent (14- to 49-year-olds).
Coverage of the war in Ukraine continued around the clock yesterday and today. RTL and NTV provided continuous information on the latest events during the night from Sunday to Monday with the joint special program “RTL/Aktuell Spezial: Krieg in der Ukraine,” as well as with highlights in all news and magazine formats. Tonight, “RTL/ntv Special: War in Ukraine” started at 12:35 AM, just after the Nachtjournal midnight news, and kept viewers up to date nonstop until 12:00 noon on both channels. In addition, the news channel NTV is reporting live and around the clock on the situation in Ukraine. RTL will provide further briefings this afternoon in a 20-minute edition starting at 5:00 PM and in the evening between 8:00 PM and 8:30 PM, each of them as part of “RTL Aktuell Spezial.” The joint special broadcast on both channels will be shown again on Wednesday night from 12:30 AM and will be interrupted during the night by U.S. President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address. RTL and NTV will broadcast the approximately 30-minute “State of the Union” address live starting at 3:00 AM.
Since the beginning of the Russian attack, the correspondents of RTL News, the journalistic division of RTL Deutschland, have been ceaselessly providing reliable information. These are the colleagues reporting from the conflict zones and sharing the latest observations with viewers in live broadcasts: Kavita Sharma (Dnipro), Nadja Kriewald (Lviv), Jürgen Weichert (Vinnytsia), Charlotte Maihoff (Moscow), Rainer Munz (Moscow), Carsten Lueb, Erik Bäsecke, Thorsten Misler, Marc Chmiel (all on the Polish-Ukrainian border), and Alex Callenius (Lithuania). Up-to-date information was and continues to be available at all times on RTL and NTV’s digital offerings, as well as in all other news and magazine shows.
