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National Media Policies
Austria’s media policy is characterized by strong regulation with little self-regulatory elements. Radio and television are dominated by the strong market player ORF, governed by a Board of Trustees (Kuratorium), composed of representatives of the political parties, the Federal Government and the Governments of the provinces (Bundesländer). However, the ORF managed well to maintain a critical balance against the state and defended its market shares against some 30 German-speaking television channels, most of them available to approximately 80 per cent of Austrian homes. Private television has not even launched proper services, as current media legislation does not allow for nationwide private television operations.
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 1990s 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 Austria’s most successful weekly magazine (17.8% reach in 2002), 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. Since 1998 the German publishing house Gruner & Jahr has held a stake of 75% in the News publishing group.
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, the most well-known of these being a guarantee that the weekly magazines “profil” would continue to exist for a period of five years. In the event of plans to stop the publication of “profil” after December 31st, 2005, the cartel court or the authority responsible for approving mergers at the time must be informed immediately and evidence must be submitted that serous effort to sell the magazine hat failed.
The number of weeklies picture magazines and technical journals on the Austrian market can only be estimated. In addition to the approximately 100 picture magazines and weeklies, there are about 2500 technical journals.
In contrast to the trend of declining circulation figures, the free papers published fortnightly or monthly record a constant high reach and numbers of readers. In Vienna for example, with 50% the “Bezirksjournal” has the greatest reach in Vienna, followed by “Wiener Bezirksblatt” (38%), “U-Express” (16%) and “VOR-Magazin” (14%).
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