(Motorsport-Total.com) – The 2026 Dutch Grand Prix in Zandvoort delivered modest TV ratings for the Formula 1 broadcasters in the German-speaking region. Both in Germany and Austria, viewer numbers partly lagged behind the comparison values of previous years.
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By far the largest linear TV reach in Germany was achieved by RTL. On average, 1.344 million viewers aged three and older followed the live broadcast. This corresponded to a market share of 12.6 percent.
For RTL, it was the weakest broadcast so far this year and the weakest since the China Grand Prix 2025 in the early morning, when only around 1.1 million had watched the race on RTL.
Even more: For Zandvoort, RTL’s numbers are clearly declining, from 2.0 million (2022) over 1.7 million (2024) and 1.57 million (2025) to the current values – a clear downward trend. Compared to the previous year alone, RTL lost almost 15 percent of its audience.
Weak numbers also at Sky
With 473,000 viewers for its linear TV broadcast, pay-TV channel Sky achieved the third weakest result in the 2026 Formula 1 season after the early morning races in Australia (388,000) and Suzuka (297,000). Thus, Sky remained well below its current average of around 554,000 viewers per Grand Prix.
Here too, the year-on-year comparison is negative: Since 2021, Sky had always reached more than half a million TV viewers in Zandvoort and temporarily stopped the previous downward trend in 2025 with 707,000 viewers. The losses are all the more remarkable now: Sky lost a third of its TV audience in Zandvoort.
Another 113,000 viewers followed the Sky broadcast via streaming, raising the total audience to 586,000. The linear broadcast achieved a market share of 4.4 percent.
High market share in Austria
In Austria, ServusTV broadcast the entire Formula 1 weekend. Especially the race on Sunday generated a high market share: On average, 499,000 people aged twelve and older followed the broadcast on linear TV. This gave ServusTV a market share of 45 percent – almost half of all Austrians watched the live broadcast from Zandvoort.
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According to the broadcaster, an additional 174,000 views were recorded on ServusTV On. This raised ServusTV’s total audience for the Dutch Grand Prix to 673,000 viewers.
In previous years, ServusTV had always achieved better figures in Zandvoort: 629,000 viewers in 2023 and 553,000 viewers in 2024. However, ORF performed only slightly better last year with 505,000 viewers.
Good numbers for the sprint on Saturday
A bright spot for the TV broadcasters was the sprint race on Saturday. It reached a total of 278,000 viewers on Sky in Germany, of which 224,000 were linear and 54,000 via streaming. The linear market share was 3.7 percent. The reach was at the level of the Miami sprint.
On ServusTV in Austria, 208,000 TV viewers and another 65,000 streaming viewers tuned in. Here, the market share was 33 percent.
Specialty channel Nitro shows qualifying live
The qualifying in Zandvoort in 2026 was not on RTL but on sister channel Nitro. There, 225,000 viewers tuned in. The total market share was 2.4 percent. In the linear direct comparison, Sky narrowly won with 234,000 TV viewers and reached another 67,000 streaming viewers. The market share here was 2.5 percent.
On ServusTV, 213,000 plus 61,000 viewers watched the Formula 1 qualifying live with a 25 percent market share.
Who will broadcast the next Formula 1 race in Monza?
At the 2026 Italian Grand Prix in Monza, Sky will again be the exclusive broadcaster for all sessions in Germany. RTL will only show the qualifying on its streaming platform RTL+. In Austria, the public broadcaster ORF will again take over the broadcast, and in Switzerland, as always, SRF will broadcast the qualifying and the race.
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