Cologne, June 30, 2026 marked the close of the strongest first half in RTL+'s history, according to a statement RTL Deutschland released yesterday. Total video-on-demand usage on the streaming platform rose 6.5 percent year over year, reaching 356.32 million hours between January 1 and June 30, 2026. Average cumulative total streaming net reach climbed to 10.69 million people, a gain of 4.8 percent, while the free-to-air channel RTL held its position as market leader among viewers aged 14 to 49 and as the strongest private broadcaster among the 14-to-59 group.

The figures arrive at a pivotal moment for RTL Deutschland. June 2026 was the first full month of joint operations following the completion of the RTL Group acquisition of Sky Deutschland, and the company used the occasion to report a combined net reach across television and digital offerings, spanning streaming and display advertising, of 68.92 million people. That figure equals 86.7 percent of the entire German market population aged three and above, according to the measurement standard cited in the release, AGF Videoforschung's Scope 1.15 methodology under the X-Reach interval.

Streaming numbers hold steady against Amazon

RTL+ remained the clear number two in streaming among both the 14-to-49 and 14-to-29 age brackets, trailing Amazon in both categories despite the reach gains. For the 14-to-49 demographic, RTL+ logged a VOD usage volume of 252.71 million hours, up 3.1 percent, again placing second behind Amazon in the AGF ranking. Among the youngest tracked cohort, 14-to-29-year-olds, usage climbed more sharply: up 17.8 percent to 105.88 million hours, though the platform still ranked second to Amazon in that segment as well.

That persistent gap matters because it frames how RTL Deutschland's growth should be read. The company is not overtaking the dominant international streaming platform in Germany; it is consolidating its position as the leading national alternative. RTL+ surpassed 7 million paying subscribers around the turn of the year, a milestone that had already confirmed Netflix as market leader by subscriber penetration, followed by Amazon Prime Video and Disney+, with RTL+ competing primarily for the remaining slots German households allocate to national services.

Programming that drove the reach numbers

Within its own content slate, RTL Deutschland's most-viewed programming brand across television and streaming in the first half was the news format "ntv Nachrichten," which reached 45.73 million users and topped the list of regularly scheduled formats. Rounding out the top five programming brands by cumulative net reach were "RTL Aktuell" with 40.03 million viewers, the long-running soap "Gute Zeiten, schlechte Zeiten" with 37.37 million, the newsmagazine "Exclusiv" with 36.19 million, and "stern TV" with 35.35 million.

Among individual formats and series, the reality competition "Ich bin ein Star - Holt mich hier raus!" led with 37.54 million users, ahead of the dance show "Let's Dance" at 35.89 million, the quiz format "Wer wird Millionär?" at 34.20 million, UEFA Europa League football coverage at 32.56 million, and the emigration documentary series "Goodbye Deutschland! Die Auswanderer" at 31.49 million.

On the streaming side specifically, measured by Census+ methodology, the most-streamed VOD title remained "Gute Zeiten, schlechte Zeiten" with 85.79 million views, followed by the reality format "Kampf der Realitystars" at 41.09 million views. The daily series "Alles was zählt" took third place with 33.32 million views, narrowly ahead of the most successful show format of the half, season 19 of "Ich bin ein Star - Holt mich hier raus!" at 33.00 million views. Rounding out the top VOD titles were the reality format "#CoupleChallenge - Das stärkste Team gewinnt" with 32.70 million views and "Prominent getrennt - Die Villa der Verflossenen" with 29.60 million views.

Inga Leschek, Chief Content Officer at RTL Deutschland, framed the growth against a backdrop of substantial competition from public broadcasters during the same period. "Wir wachsen im ersten Halbjahr und das gegen die Reichweitenbooster Olympia, Handball WM und Fußball WM bei ARD und ZDF," Leschek said, according to the RTL Deutschland statement, adding that the outcome confirmed the company's planning and strategy. She pointed to a mix of established entertainment brands alongside sports broadcasting and the company's news and magazine programming as the foundation of the result, while also citing newer additions to the schedule. Leschek specifically credited the show "Wer weiß wie wann was war?," produced with Barbara Schöneberger and Stefan Raab, as one of the most successful new German entertainment formats launched in recent years.

Linear television holds ground despite Olympic and World Cup competition

RTL Deutschland's linear ratings performance in the first half was anchored by a single sporting broadcast. The men's football friendly between Germany and the United States on June 6 drew 8.61 million viewers on RTL, delivering a market share of 39.6 percent across the total population and 50.2 percent among the core 14-to-59 demographic, according to the company's figures.

The same weekend produced what RTL Deutschland described as the first joint "Super Sport Weekend" following the Sky Deutschland integration. Formula 1 coverage, the German national team's match against the United States, the French Open final, and OKTAGON MMA collectively drew 25.03 million viewers across RTL, NITRO, and Sky Sport, marking what the company called a successful debut for the combined premium live sports offering. Additional strong-performing programming included the jungle-set reality format "Ich bin ein Star - Holt mich hier raus!," "Let's Dance," the new event show "Wer weiß wie wann was war? - Die Show der Generationen," and what the release termed a well-received return of the drama series "Der Lehrer."

RTL, the flagship channel, closed the first half with a 9.4 percent market share among viewers 14 to 59, retaining its position as the clear leader among private broadcasters despite the scheduling pressure created by the Winter Olympics and the men's football World Cup airing on public broadcasters ARD and ZDF during the same window. Among the narrower 14-to-49 demographic, RTL was the only channel to clear the 10 percent threshold, finishing at 10.1 percent. Across the total population, the channel held an 8.2 percent share, level with the prior-year period.

Other channels in the RTL Deutschland portfolio showed more modest, largely flat movement. VOX held a 5.5 percent share among the 14-to-59 group, unchanged from the prior year. NITRO reached 2.0 percent and ntv held 1.4 percent, both also steady year over year. RTL Up posted a half-year share of 2.2 percent among 14-to-59-year-olds, up 0.1 percentage points, while VOXup recorded a 1.0 percent share, an increase of 0.3 percentage points.

Combined, all channels under the Sendergruppe RTL Deutschland umbrella reached a 26.7 percent market share among viewers aged 14 to 59, an increase of 0.8 percentage points compared with the same period in the prior year.

The Sky Deutschland integration changes what these numbers mean

The timing of this report gives the underlying figures additional weight. RTL Group closed its acquisition of Sky Deutschland on June 1, 2026, paying 68 million euros in upfront cash to Comcast, substantially below the 150 million euros originally cited when the transaction was announced in June 2025. That closing followed unconditional approval from the European Commission on April 22, 2026, which cleared the deal without requiring remedies or divestitures.

June 2026, therefore, represents the first month in which RTL Deutschland's reported figures reflect a market presence that includes Sky Deutschland's premium sports rights portfolio, encompassing the Bundesliga, DFB-Pokal, Premier League, and Formula 1, alongside RTL's existing entertainment, news, and streaming assets. The 68.92 million net reach figure cited for June 2026 captures that combined footprint for the first time, which explains why RTL Deutschland chose to highlight it separately from the half-year streaming and linear figures that cover the full six-month period under the pre-merger structure.

The financial context behind the deal remains relevant for readers assessing these growth figures. RTL Group has stated that the transaction is expected to generate 250 million euros in annual synergies within three years of closing, described as "mostly cost synergies across all categories," without a public breakdown between content, technology, and headcount categories. The three brands now under common ownership, RTL+, Sky, and WOW, serve approximately 12.3 million paying subscribers across Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, a figure that has grown from the 11.5 million originally cited when the acquisition was announced.

Advertising market context

The first-half figures land against a backdrop of financial pressure that RTL Group has previously disclosed to investors. RTL Group cut its full-year 2025 adjusted EBITA guidance from approximately 780 million euros to 650 million euros on November 18, 2025, citing weaker-than-expected television advertising markets in Germany and France. That guidance revision preceded a workforce reduction. RTL disclosed plans on December 2, 2025 to eliminate approximately 600 full-time positions across its German operations, representing roughly 10 percent of the German workforce, a decision the company attributed to structural and economic pressures on the advertising business.

Against that backdrop, the reach and usage growth reported for the first half of 2026 offers a partial counterpoint: audience numbers moving upward even as the underlying television advertising market continued to contract in the prior reporting period. Whether advertising revenue growth has kept pace with the audience gains reported today was not addressed in the release, and RTL Group's next scheduled disclosure of that detail is its half-year 2026 results presentation, expected August 11, 2026, which will be the first to incorporate full consolidation of Sky Deutschland for the period from June through December.

RTL Deutschland's advertising sales operation, Ad Alliance, has continued building out its targeting and measurement infrastructure during the period covered by these figures. Ad Alliance partnered with Utiq on September 2, 2025 to integrate a telecommunications-powered identifier across RTL Deutschland's digital properties, reaching approximately 4 million users on mobile platforms without relying on third-party cookies. That cookieless targeting push sits alongside broader shifts in how German streaming audiences are measured. AGF Videoforschung integrated Amazon's Prime Video into Germany's standardized video measurement system starting November 2025, marking the first time a Joint Industry Committee anywhere incorporated an international streaming service using server-to-server technology. That integration is directly relevant to how the AGF-sourced comparisons in today's release, including RTL+'s second-place ranking behind Amazon, are calculated and verified.

The company has also continued expanding its content slate during the reporting period. RTL Deutschland secured an expanded Warner Bros. Discovery volume deal and exclusive live DFB-Pokal broadcasting rights beginning with the 2026/27 season, adding forthcoming football rights and film titles to a portfolio that already includes German national team matches and Europa League coverage. More recently, RTL Deutschland announced a broad artificial intelligence strategy on March 27, 2026 spanning content production, postproduction, and on-air branding, positioning the company for what it described as leadership in agentic AI applications within German-language media.

What the report does and does not say

The RTL Deutschland statement, issued as a press release from Cologne, relies on figures sourced to AGF Videoforschung's Scope 1.15 measurement standard, covering the interval from January 1 to June 30, 2026 for both television and streaming data, with final weighted figures applied. A footnote in the release specifies that programming brand rankings are sorted by cumulative total video net reach in millions, while the top-five VOD title lists exclude RTLZWEI and are limited to in-house and commissioned productions. The release also notes that its per-title VOD analysis aggregates only individual titles with a minimum of 1,000 recorded views, a threshold disclosed for methodological transparency.

Notably absent from the release is any breakdown of streaming or linear advertising revenue tied to these audience figures, any subscriber count specific to RTL+ as distinct from the combined Sky Deutschland and WOW subscriber base, or commentary on how the integration of Sky Deutschland's sports rights portfolio is expected to affect future reach and revenue figures beyond the June 2026 snapshot. Those details, if disclosed, would likely appear in RTL Group's broader half-year 2026 financial results.

Why this matters for marketing professionals

For media buyers and planners working across German television and streaming inventory, the first-half figures offer a data point on how audience measurement is evolving during a period of significant market consolidation. The reach figures reported today were calculated using AGF Videoforschung's methodology, the same measurement standard that recently began incorporating Amazon Prime Video through server-to-server integration, a development that has direct bearing on how comparative rankings between RTL+ and its international competitors are constructed and verified going forward.

The advertising implications extend beyond measurement standards. RTL Deutschland's Ad Alliance now sells access to an audience base that, as of June 2026, spans linear television, RTL+ streaming, and Sky Deutschland's premium sports inventory under a single sales structure for the first time. Advertisers evaluating campaign plans across the German market will need to account for that structural change when assessing reach, frequency, and cost efficiency across RTL's combined portfolio, particularly given that the company's own disclosed synergy targets and cost-cutting measures suggest continued reorganization of commercial operations is likely through 2027.

The persistence of Amazon's lead in the 14-to-49 and 14-to-29 streaming segments, despite RTL+'s reach and usage gains, also signals that national broadcaster consolidation in Germany has not yet closed the gap with the largest international platforms. That dynamic mirrors patterns observed elsewhere in Europe, where broadcaster mergers have been framed by industry executives as a defensive response to competitive pressure from platforms with substantially larger international content budgets, rather than as a route to outright market leadership over those platforms in the near term.

Timeline

  • June 27, 2025: RTL Group and Sky Group sign a definitive agreement for RTL's acquisition of Sky Deutschland.
  • November 18, 2025: RTL Group cuts full-year 2025 adjusted EBITA guidance from approximately 780 million euros to 650 million euros, citing weaker television advertising markets.
  • December 2, 2025: RTL discloses plans to eliminate approximately 600 full-time positions across German operations.
  • April 22, 2026: The European Commission unconditionally approves RTL Group's acquisition of Sky Deutschland.
  • June 1, 2026: RTL Group closes the Sky Deutschland acquisition for 68 million euros in upfront cash.
  • June 6, 2026: The Germany-United States football friendly draws 8.61 million viewers on RTL, the highest-rated linear broadcast of the half.
  • June 30, 2026: The first half of 2026 closes, marking the period covered by RTL Deutschland's reported figures.
  • July 8, 2026: RTL Deutschland publishes its first-half 2026 performance statement from Cologne.
  • August 11, 2026: RTL Group is scheduled to present updated full-year 2026 guidance incorporating full Sky Deutschland consolidation.

Summary

Who: RTL Deutschland, the German media division of Luxembourg-based RTL Group, publishing figures for its streaming platform RTL+ and its family of free-to-air channels including RTL, VOX, NITRO, and ntv.

What: RTL Deutschland reported its strongest first half in RTL+'s history, with VOD usage up 6.5 percent to 356.32 million hours and average cumulative streaming reach up 4.8 percent to 10.69 million people, while the flagship RTL channel retained its position as market leader among viewers 14 to 49 and the strongest private broadcaster among viewers 14 to 59.

When: The reporting period covers January 1 through June 30, 2026. RTL Deutschland published the statement on July 8, 2026.

Where: Cologne, Germany, where RTL Deutschland is headquartered, with the figures covering the German television and streaming market broadly.

Why: The report matters because it arrives during the first full month of combined operations following RTL Group's completed acquisition of Sky Deutschland, and because it documents audience growth occurring alongside previously disclosed advertising revenue pressure that led RTL Group to cut 2025 profit guidance and eliminate approximately 600 jobs in Germany.