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Media in Austria |
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Media in Austria
The Austrian Media Landscape
The Austrian media landscape is dominated by large companies. The public broadcaster ORF enjoys an unchallenged position in television and radio.
In the press sector, two of the largest daily newspapers, Neue Kronenzeitung and Kurier, together reach nearly half of the population. Both newspapers resort to the same holding company, which deals with all aspects of commercial business, advertising and distribution for both papers. Half of the shares of both papers belong to the same German media group, Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung. The weekly news magazine News (owned by Germany’s Gruner + Jahr by majority) is the largest of its kind in Europe – as regards household penetration.
These highly concentrated media markets are not regulated by a single institution but control is shared by various federal institutions. Most significant is the responsibility of the Federal Chancellery, which is responsible for the federal press subsidies scheme, the licensing of private radio operators, the composition of the various boards of the public broadcaster ORF and (since 1997) culture (film and audiovisual production). Cartel legislation, however, falls within the responsibility of the Ministry of Justice, while media and communication research as well as the telecommunications sector is supervised by the Ministry of Science and Transport.
The Written Press
Daily newspapers are very popular in Austria. There are more than 2 million copies distributed every day to a population of some 8 million people. Whereof around 40% only by the Neue Kronenzeitung. The rest is shared by 15 daily newspapers all over the country, local and regional papers included.
Several waves of press concentration have hit Austria since World War II, leaving the country in the early nineties with a rather small number of papers. However, this number is stable and no major market restructuring is expected in short-term.
Kleine Zeitung and Kurier ranked long time second and third after Neue Kronen Zeitung, but were lately outran by the newly founded Österreich. Kleine Zeitung was founded in 1904 by the Catholic Press Association Graz/Seckau. The newspaper is owned by Styria Medien AG.
Kurier was founded on October 18th, 1954 as “Neue Wiener Kurier” by Ludwig Polsterer and succeeded “Wiener Kurier” published by the US occupiers (published from August 27th, 1945 to October 16th, 1954).
The above-mentioned investments of the WAZ Group in Neue Kronen Zeitung and Kurier have been held by Mediaprint AG since 1988. The entry of Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung into the print media market in the late 1980s marked the beginning of the investments in the Austrian market by large German publishing houses. The publishing group from North Rhine-Westphalia, which had become a market leader in Germany mainly with ad-only and regional papers, was legally barred from investing more in the Germen press market. In 1988 WAZ acquired large shares of Neue Kronenzeitung and some month later of Kurier.
Since 1988 the joint subsidiary Mediaprint AG has been in charge of the printing, distribution and advertisement canvassing of the two dailies. This led to the emergence of an integrated group of more than one dozen companies, which employs a total staff of about 4,000. In addition to free papers and investments in the audio-visual sector (e.g. Radio KRONEHIT), it owns a number of magazines (e.g. Profil, Trend), which are held through a wholly-owned subsidiary of Kurier. Thus Mediaprint AG is the country’s biggest media conglomerate.
In 2006 the daily newspaper “Österreich” was founded, owned 100% by Fellner Medien AG. Already one year later the paper distributed about 300.000 copies a day and so became the second largest newspaper in Austria
Although the segment of quality papers has a significantly smaller reach compared to the four big papers, the reach of Der Standard and Die Presse is quite remarkable by an international comparison of quality dailies. Both daily newspapers reach more than 4% of the readers per day.
The liberal, independent daily Der Standard found by Oscar Bronner has been published since October 1988. Before Bronner bought them back in 2008 around 50% of the shares were hold by German investors.
The middle-class, liberal and independent daily Die Presse was founded by Ernst Molden after World War II and has been published daily since October 19th, 1948. 51% of Die Presse is owned by Styria Verlag. In 1999 the rest of the shares were taken over by the owner of Styria Verlag.
In addition, the most important dailies of Austria’s federal provinces such as Oberösterreichische Nachrichten, Tiroler Tageszeitung, Salzburger Nachrichten as well as Vorarlberger Nachrichten boast excellent regional market positions.
The state-owned Wiener Zeitung was founded in 1703, making it the world’s oldest daily.
Furthermore Austria has a lively industry of free daily newspapers, entirely financed by ad revenues. Those newspapers, e.g. "Heute", are usually distributed in densely populated metropolitan areas.
Links to selected Austrian newspapers (German only):
KURIER Kleine Zeitung Neue Kronen Zeitung Der Standard Die Presse Oberösterreichische Nachrichten Tiroler Tageszeitung Salzburger Nachrichten Wiener Zeitung Österreich
Links to selected print media companies doing business in Austria (German only):
Mediaprint WAZ Styria NEWS Verlag
The Audiovisual Media
Since its infancy, radio and television was the exclusive domain of the public sector, controlling not only the two national television channels and the four national radio networks, but also the entire transmission equipment all over the country. The Austrian Broadcasting Corporation (ORF) is institutionalized by law and governed a Board of Trustees, composed of representatives of the political parties, the Federal Government and the Governments of the nine federal states. The Board elects the Director-General for a four-year term, decides on large investments and controls the whole organization.
The ORF operates two television channels and four radio channels in accordance with its legal mandate. ORF competes directly with a variety of German language channels which are available in the cable networks and by satellite. The rising popularity of the German private channels since the 1980s hugely influenced the financial situation of the ORF, which obtains roughly half of its gross income through ad revenues (the other half generates from a compulsory broadcasting fee everybody with be physical ability to receive the two ORF channels (i.e. TV set) has to pay).
Unlike the German private channels the ORF, being the theoretical possession of every Austrian citizen, has a so called Programmauftrag, a programming mandate by law, very much like the English BBC. This mandate obliges the ORF to a variety of different programming and content specifics dealing with the Austrian culture, its ethnic and ideologic minorities, its history as well as political, environmental and social content, and so on. Its pledge to producing aforesaid contents, each one of them focussed on a very small group of potential recipients, constitutes a huge financial burden to the ORF. It is one of the reasons for the establishment of the compulsory broadcasting fee.
A special board within the ORF, the "Publikumsrat" (audience board), supervises the fulfilling of the Programmauftrag. The main assignment of the Publikumsrat is to safeguard the interests of the audience. This board consists of 35 individuals, who are appointed by various organisations (e.g. unions, the church).
A nationwide license for terrestrial private television broadcasting was granted in the first instance to ATV Privatfernsehen GmbH on January 31st, 2002. This decision of KommAustria was confirmed by the Federal Communications Board. Since June 2003, ATV can be received via outdoor antenna all over Austria.
Puls4 exists since 2008 and is part of the private ProSiebenSat.1 Media corporation, a german private television broadcasting network.
Non-nationwide licenses for terrestrial private television broadcasting in the conurbations of Vienna, Salzburg and Linz were granted on July 29th, 2002. Furthermore, additional local licenses not covering the entire federal territory were granted for terrestrial analogue private television in Bad Ischl, Bad Kleinkirchheim, western Styria and in Steyr.
Okto is a non-commerical community media sponsored by the community of Vienna. It is a platform for minorities who may be underrepresented in public as well as in private television.
The public radio broadcaster ORF runs 3 nationwide and 9 regional stations for each of the 9 federal states. Furthermore it broadcasts international radio and radio stations for Austrian ethnic minorities, i.e. Slovenes.
Links to selected Austrian broadcasters (German only):
ORF TV
ORF ORF programming mandate ORF Charta  programming guidelines for the ORF
ORF Radio
OE1 OE3 all ORF Radio Stations
Other TV
Puls4 ATV Okto
Other Radio
KroneHit 88.6 Radio Energy Radio Orange Antenne Life Radio Arabella
Professional Organizations
Austria hosts a number of national and international professional media bodies. The International Press Institute has its headquarters in Vienna. It observes freedom of speech violations worldwide and defends journalist subjected to oppression in caring out their work. Another international organization is the Association of UN-Journalists.
At a national level, journalists are organized in the Journalist’s Union, part and member of the Austrian Union’s Federation (Gewerkschaftsbund). Publishers, on the other hand, are organized in the Publisher’s Associations (one for the daily press, another for magazines). Furthermore, there is journalism training institution (Kuratorium für Journalistenausbildung) and two institutes for media and communication science at the Universities of Vienna and Salzburg.
Weeklies and Picture Magazines
Ever since the 1950s, the market of supra-regional weeklies and picture magazines has been strongly dominated by Best German products (e.g. Bunte, Stern, etc.). This situation did not change, even after the successful launching of trend and profil, two magazines that were founded and successfully placed on the market in 1970 by Oscar Bronner.
It was only in the 1980/90s that the market was profoundly transformed. This was due to the market entry of the weekly picture magazine Die ganze Woche founded by Kurt Falk and above all by the launch of the weekly magazine NEWS on October 15th, 1992 by two journalists, the brothers Wolfgang and Helmuth Fellner (with a 50% investment of the Springer group).
The weekly magazine NEWS, which is by now one of Austria’s most successful weekly magazine, introduced a highly profitable concept in Austria , which served not only as a model for other lucrative domestic magazines products (tv-media, Format, E-media, WOMAN) but also sold successfully to other Western European countries.
With the approval of the merger between KURIER MAGAZINE Verlags GmbH and NEWS GmbH in 2001 by the Vienna Regional Intermediate Court of Appeals acting as the cartel court (court decision of January 26th, 2001) a globally unique concentration process in the Austrian print media sector was initiated.
63% of the circulation of the dailies, 100% of that of the political weekly magazines and 62% of the circulation of all weekly publications are controlled by this conglomerate. The Vienna Regional Intermediate Court of Appeals approved the merger subject to some conditions.
Links to selected Austrian magazines (German only):
profil NEWS trend Format Falter
Print Media: Online Presence
Just before the turn of the millennium, all of Austria’s major dailies and weeklies finally went online. The first daily in the entire German-speaking area launching an Internet edition was Der Standard (online since February 2nd, 1995). As far as online presentation is concerned, different offers and strategies of the media entrepreneurs can be identified which can be categorized along the following criteria:
The economic downturn registered since 2001 has had a profound impact on the Austrian mass media. Cost-cutting programmes have also affected online offers, especially since the anticipated revenues in the online sector failed to materialize. Various business models are under discussion for the online sector. Both paid-content services and exclusively ad-financed models have been announced and the strategy of an Internet platform adopted by Eugen Ruß has proven profitable. The publisher and owner of Vorarlberger Nachrichten established a network of regional online services that extends from Austria’s westernmost province over the entire country. Aside from the hypertext version of the regional paper, a wide range of services is offered, supplemented by business offers tuned to each location.
Austria Press Agency
APA - Austria Press Agency is the country’s national news agency and the leading information service provider for Austria. Austrian newspapers and the ORF TV and Radio network own the agency.
The APA-Group includes the APA news agency, as well as ten subsidiaries. Its work focuses on the areas of a news agency, photo agency, information management, and information technology. The APA editorial departments supply real-time news service in word, image, and graphics. The subsidiaries offer dissemination, research, and knowledge management services, as well as information technology solutions. The APA-Group targets its work towards professional users (information managers, PR experts) in the fields of media, politics, public authorities, and economics. APA fulfils its duties independent from the state, governmental, and political party influences and in accordance with the principles of reliability, speed, balanced information and avoidance of any one-sidedness and party influence.
More information on the APA can be found here:
APA
The Internet
Austrians are fans of technology. Similarly to mobile telephony, Internet use has shown a highly dynamic trend (a market penetration of more than 70% was achieved within just a few years). Since 1996 the number of users has more than quintupled.
Structural data on Internet users show that the degree of Internet use depends on socio-economic parameters: older people, person without completed higher secondary education, women, people living in villages and small towns, and the inhabitants of Lower Austria, Burgenland, Styria and Carinthia register below-average rates of Internet use. Similar to most states, Austria is confronted with the vital challenge of the information society, i.e. taking measures against an emerging digital gap between households with PCs and Internet access and those without.
Cinema and Film
Although Austrian cinematographic film productions have lately met with great interest from the audience and critics and some have even been awarded prizes, e.g. Stefan Ruzowitzky's "Counterfeiters" (2007), Michael Haneke’s “Funny Games” (1997) or “The Piano Teacher” (2001), Barbara Albert’s “Northern Skirts” (1999) or Ulrich Seidl’s debut feature film “Dog Days” (2001), Foreign Language Oscar nominated Götz Spielmann’s “Revanche” (2008). The share of films produced uniquely for the cinema comes to just 11% of the total film production volume.
About 90% of the annual values of production are commissioned productions and about 10% are independent productions (Austrian films produced by Austrian filmmakers or Austrian-foreign co-productions). Excluding subcontracted services, the ORF and actors, the Austrian film industry employs between 700 and 1,499 film creators in the strict sense of the word, subject to seasonal fluctuations. The industry’s annual total turnover is about 145.25 million Euros.
Film Festivals
Diagonale
The festival of the Austrian Film has been held annually in Graz since 1998. The festival offers a representative selection of new Austrian film productions, including feature films, documentaries, short films, animation films, avant-garde films and television films.
Visit Diagonale online.
Viennale
Since 1960 the international film festival VIENNALE has taken place in Vienna’s city centre every year in October. VIENNALE presents a total of about 300 international feature films and documentaries, to a large extent productions which do not feature in regular movie theatre programs.
Visit Viennale online.
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