In the area of electronically-mediated communication, real-time online text commentaries (OTCs) as a new specialised register have become popular as an alternative to traditional broadcasting. OTCs have been recognised as “mediated quasi-interaction” (Chovanec 2010) and a hybrid genre showing characteristics of spoken discourse within a written mode (Jucker 2006), as well as a characteristic combination of simultaneous information and entertainment (“infotainment”), where familiarity or “pseudo-intimacy” (O’Keeffe 2006; cf. Chovanec 2008) between commentator and the audience is created. This contribution helps to situate this emerging register from a cross-cultural perspective. I use OTCs by English and German media outlets from the EURO 2012 football championship to tackle the following issues with the help of a corpus-linguistic approach: (i) What are register-specific structural features of OTCs? (ii) Are there any culture-specific aspects along language boundaries or the dimension “intended readership”? I also consider the interaction of layout and content, production circumstances, and the influence of recent developments (such as the incorporation of Twitter messages) on reporting styles.