How many fans watched the 2025 Formula 1 season opener in Australia on German-language TV channels and how it compares to last year
On German-language television, Formula 1 started the 2025 racing season with modest ratings: at the Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne, the figures in Germany and Austria were well below the previous year’s results in some cases. And that despite Australia hosting the season opener this year, rather than being the third race of the season as in 2024. But let’s take this one step at a time.
In Germany, pay-TV channel Sky reported exclusively live from the opening race and reached a TV audience of 321,000. This is below the previous year’s figure of 338,000 viewers for the Australian Grand Prix and even further below the 431,000 who watched the opening race in Bahrain in 2024 – at a more favorable TV time in the early afternoon on Sky.
Sky’s balance is slightly positive when the TV and streaming audiences are considered together: in 2025, 406,000 used the various Sky offers for Melbourne, after there were still 403,000 in 2024. However, the comparison with the 2024 season opener in Bahrain is once again clearly negative: 561,000 were live across all platforms last year.
The weak Sky figures are all the more remarkable because RTL – unlike last year – did not offer any live coverage of the season opener, but only showed the qualifying session.
This continues the clear downward trend for Sky at the Australian Grand Prix since 2022: the audience has shrunk by more than a third from a previous 506,000 TV-only viewers – a decline that the Sky streaming service only partially compensated for.
Nevertheless, the market share rose slightly from 13.6 to 13.8 percent – probably mainly due to the early broadcast time of the race starting at 5 a.m. (CET).
ORF: Solid market share, but significant decline in viewers
In terms of market share, the public broadcaster ORF in Austria, with 61 percent, was in the expected range for a morning race in Melbourne. But: in its previous broadcast in 2022, ORF had done slightly better with 65 percent. Compared to last year, ServusTV, which had only managed around 43 percent for Australia in 2024, performed well.
Last year’s 128,000 viewers of ServusTV were an easy hurdle for ORF to overcome: 281,000 watched the Grand Prix live, but that is only half of the audience ServusTV reached with its 2023 coverage. In 2022, ORF itself had only attracted 433,000 viewers, although Australia had not been the opening race in either case.
Swiss television (SRF) started the 2025 Formula 1 season with 45,000 viewers in the smallest of the TV markets discussed here, well below the previous year: In 2024, 74,000 tuned in for the Australian Grand Prix – and that was the weakest SRF race of the entire year.
There were also losses in market share, down from 37.6 percent: last year, the Australian Grand Prix had done significantly better on Swiss television, with 49 percent.
Qualifying: Sky only just loses out to RTL
In qualifying, pay-TV channel Sky and free-TV channel RTL went head to head for the first time this year in Germany, with both broadcasting live. RTL “won” the direct comparison with 128,000 viewers, just ahead of Sky with 124,000 TV viewers. However, including streaming, Sky reached a total audience of 174,000. This figure is just above the 168,000 pure TV viewers for ORF in Austria.
China Grand Prix: These channels are broadcasting the race
At the China Grand Prix in Shanghai at the weekend, Formula 1 fans in Germany will have a choice for the first time in 2025 about how they want to watch the race: Sky and RTL will each show the Grand Prix live. In Austria, ServusTV will cover the race live. ORF will then be back on the starting line at the race in Suzuka (Japan) after next. (Further information can be found in our TV overview!)
