21 of 340: AfD Gets 6% of Public-Broadcaster Slots as Largest Opposition Party
November 2, 2026 · Frisian News
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
An Apollo News audit of five German public-broadcaster talk shows found the AfD received just 21 of 340 politician appearances from January to October 2026, a 6.2 percent share despite winning 20.8 percent of the vote at the 2025 federal election. No party with Bundestag seats received fewer invitations.
Twenty-one appearances out of 340. That is what Germany's largest opposition party received on the five main public-broadcaster talk shows from January through October 2026, according to an audit by Apollo News. The AfD, which won 20.8 percent of the vote at the 2025 federal election, holds just 6.2 percent of all politician slots on those programmes. No party represented in the Bundestag received fewer invitations.
The electoral arithmetic makes the disparity plain. The AfD finished second at the last federal election, ahead of the governing SPD. The five shows covered by the Apollo News audit are "Hart aber fair", "Maischberger", "Markus Lanz", "Maybrit Illner" and "Caren Miosga", tracked from January 1 to the end of October.
The ruling coalition fared considerably better. CDU and CSU together collected 144 invitations, 42.4 percent of all appearances, against a vote share of 28.5 percent. The SPD received 91 appearances, a 26.8 percent share of the total, compared with a ballot result of 16.4 percent at the 2025 election.
The AfD trails even parties with smaller parliamentary footprints. The Greens received 35 invitations (10.3 percent of the total) and Die Linke 25 (7.4 percent). The only parties receiving fewer slots than the AfD were the FDP and BSW, with 11 and 7 appearances respectively. Neither currently holds seats in the Bundestag.
Within the AfD's 21-slot total the access narrows further. Party co-leader Tino Chrupalla appeared five times, with Beatrix von Storch and Bernd Baumann each appearing four times. Alice Weidel, who co-leads both the party and its parliamentary group in the Bundestag alongside Chrupalla, appeared zero times across the entire ten-month period, per Apollo News.
The subject matter tells a further story. Of the AfD's 21 appearances, 17 concerned the party itself, a state election, or the political cordon that other parties call the Brandmauer. For CDU/CSU, SPD and Greens representatives, party-related topics accounted for roughly one third of their appearances, according to the Apollo News audit.
The exclusion runs deepest on economic policy. A separate breakdown by the FAZ, cited by nius.de, found that across 62 talk-show episodes covering the economy, taxes and prices, an AfD politician sat at the table just twice.
The party that won 20.8 percent of the vote gets 6.2 percent of the chairs.
Published November 2, 2026 · Frisian News