Last year on February 25, because of the war in Ukraine, ZDF removed the television carnival “Mainz stays Mainz, how it sings and laughs” from the main program. This year it was shown linearly again – and it was the ARD’s turn to broadcast it. At the same time, crime series ran on ZDF and this year’s season of the dance show “Let’s Dance” started on RTL. Who was ahead?

In terms of TV audiences, ZDF won with its crime series on Friday evening at prime time. First, an average of 5.51 million (19.4 percent from 8:15 p.m.) watched “The Public Prosecutor” (episode: “Lucky Charm”), then 4.64 million watched “SOKO Leipzig” (16.7 percent from 9:15 p.m. for the episode “ Life is not a pony farm”).

The carnival session “Mainz stays Mainz, how it sings and laughs” produced by Südwestrundfunk (SWR) for ARD on the first channel was watched by an average of 4.58 million viewers over almost four hours – fewer than ever before. The market share for live transmission was a good 19.0 percent.

That’s because fewer and fewer people watch linear TV overall, which with a smaller reach may well mean a higher audience than in previous years.

The start of this year’s season of the RTL dance show “Let’s Dance” reached 3.97 million (15.9 percent). Last year there were about 4.4 million and before that even 4.9 million (each with a market share of more than 16 percent). But among younger viewers (14 to 49 years old), “Let’s Dance” was far ahead: with 22.7 percent (1.30 million).

This was followed in the overall audience by the US thriller “The Accountant” with Ben Affleck on ProSieben (1.35 million/5.0 percent), the western remake “The Glorious Seven” on RTLzwei (950,000/3.5 percent) , the Vox docu-soap “Goodbye Germany! Love to the end of the world” (820,000/3.0 percent) and the crime series “Navy CIS” on Kabel Eins (720,000/2.5 percent) and the Sat.1 game show ” My husband can” (590,000/2.1 percent).