The Münster “crime scene” has gained some audience again. An average of 12.73 million tuned in to the WDR crime thriller “Unter Gärtnern” on Erste. That meant 41.1 percent market share for the ARD program. This meant that the TV investigators Frank Thiel (Axel Prahl) and Professor Karl-Friedrich Boerne (Jan Josef Liefers) were of course the ratings winners of the evening by a wide margin.
The last case from Münster, “The Man Who Fell into the Jungle” (December 10th), was followed by 11.6 million people on the first, which corresponded to around 38 percent of the market share. Last year’s other Münster “crime scene” – “MagicMom” (March 5, 2023) – was tuned in by 13.9 million, which corresponded to a 40.5 percent market share. In other words: Two fifths of all people who watched television at that time did so with this “crime scene” on the screen.
The particularly popular Münster team has been in action since October 2002. There have been 45 cases so far. With around 14.6 million viewers, the episode “Fangshot”, which was broadcast on April 2, 2017, is still listed as the most-watched film by the duo Thiel and Boerne – and the most-watched “crime scene” of the last few decades (since 1992).
The ARD “Tatort” with around 20 different teams is by far Germany’s most popular TV series. It has existed since 1970. Since then, 1,265 films have been broadcast with the label.