Young people are enthusiastic about combustion engine motorsport

Few laps, lots of viewers: RTL specialty channel Nitro gets strong TV ratings at the Nürburgring 24-hour race. Livestream reaches over 3 million views.

Robert Seiwert04.06.2024, 17:07

Robert Seiwert

Head of Motorsport

Robert was already writing for sports media before his time at MSM. He has been reporting on DTM, Daytona, Le Mans and other events directly from the racetrack since 2011.MORE

Spectators at the 24h race Nürburgring 2024

World-class atmosphere at the 24h race Nürburgring on the Nordschleife, Photo: Gruppe C Photography

As you can see, you see nothing: The foggy The 2024 Nürburgring 24-hour race and TV partner Nitro can look forward to excellent TV ratings despite a 14-hour interruption and not a single free lap on Sunday. On Sunday alone, an average of 310,000 viewers tuned in, while the drivers and teams hoped to be able to resume the race despite the foggy conditions.

As we all know, this was not to happen. After the interruption at 11:22 p.m. on Saturday and five formation laps behind the safety car on Sunday, the race management decided to end the 52nd edition of the Eifel classic early at 3:05 p.m. instead of the planned 4:00 p.m. With just 50 laps and 8:57 hours of driving time (7:22 of which were under the green flag), the race went down in history as the shortest. You can read what is behind this decision in the following article:

Young people enjoy the 24h Nürburgring

TV viewers had probably also speculated on a restart, after it had to be pushed back every half hour starting on Sunday morning at 7:00 a.m. until at least the engines were started at 1:30 p.m. The average of 310,000 viewers ensured a total market share of 3.5 percent, which is significantly above the average (2023: 1.8 percent) of the RTL specialty channel.

Despite all the doom and gloom, the The Nordschleife classic with its 127 combustion engine cars in the starting field continues to be very popular with young people. In the so-called target group of 14-49 year olds, an average of 110,000 viewers tuned in on Sunday, which corresponds to an excellent market share of 6.4 percent for the station. According to the station, last year it was 4.2 percent in the target group.

24h Nürburgring 2024: Summary and highlights from the race (09:41 min.)

24-hour live stream reaches 3.5 million views

For many years now, in addition to linear TV broadcasting, the official 24h live stream on YouTube extremely popular. On the almost ‘drive-free Sunday’, an average of 100,000 people watched from the early hours of the morning as nothing actually happened. The German-language live stream reached a total of 3.5 million views from the start of the broadcast on Saturday afternoon.

24h Nürburgring 2025: Date set

Nitro broadcast the Eifel classic for the ninth time in a row and has prematurely extended its contract with the promoter until 2026. The date for the 24h Nürburgring 2025 has already been set: the 53rd edition will take place from 19 to 22 June, three weeks later than this time. Nitro is also the TV home of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, which will be shown continuously on free TV in two weeks on 15-16 June 2024.

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