History of television in Austria

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Singrienergasse school building (Vienna-Meidling): ORF's first TV studio

The history of television in Austria is up to the recent past, mainly due to the history of the ORF . Historically, Austrian broadcasting goes back to RAVAG , which was founded in the 1920s, dissolved after the Anschluss and re-founded in 1945 . The occupying powers of the USA , the Soviet Union , Great Britain and France exercised control over broadcasting in Austria for around ten years after the Second World War . When the broadcasting systems were handed over to the federal government a few months before the signing of the state treaty, the previous form of today's ORF was founded.

The real history of television in Austria did not begin until the second half of the 1950s with the broadcast of the first test programs; regular television operations began in 1958. During the 1960s, television became a popular mass medium. The influence on radio and television was initially divided according to proportional representation between the two ruling parties, ÖVP and SPÖ . It was not until the radio popular initiative and the sole government under Josef Klaus that the way was paved for the “reformed radio” with largely independent reporting. In 1969 color television broadcasts began. For a long time, the decision-makers resisted the introduction of private television, which many believed to be economically unsuccessful even at the beginning of the 1990s due to the limited advertising market in Austria. ATV only started in 2003 as Austria's first private terrestrial television station.

General

On the research situation

To this day there is no systematic television history writing in Austria. Television research (since the mid-1990s, the office hours of the parties in the most important information broadcast on ORF, the time in Figure -1, have been statistically recorded and evaluated) is limited to the impact of the television medium on political opinion-forming, this type of research more sociological than historiographical. There are no institutions in Austria that can be compared with the German broadcast archive , the French Institut national de l'audiovisuel / INA or the British National Film and Television Archive . The most important A / V archives in Austria are, on the one hand, the Austrian media library , which is predominantly geared towards everyday history , the phonogram archive of the Academy of Sciences and the Filmarchiv Austria, as well as the Austrian Film Museum . None of these institutions systematically collect, preserve, or restore television material. Systematically collected written material on radio and television history (minutes of meetings, listeners / seer mail) does not exist. The library has, however, announced in 2007, in collaboration with Ö1 all expenditure radio-information broadcast of Mittagsjournal to 1967 to 1989 to digitize and make accessible online. This project was extended for one year in 2008. At the beginning of 2009, all of the digitized material was made publicly available on the Austrian Media Library's homepage. The ORF television archive, which according to its own information contains 300,000 hours of broadcast material, is set up as a private company archive and is therefore subject to economic constraints and has no public mandate. The historical archive of the ORF, founded by Peter Dusek in the early 1980s, is more in the tradition of a political-historical archive . It has been collecting film documents on the history of Austria since 1918 and was brought into being in the course of research activities for the ambitious Austria II project .

The broadcast monopoly in Austria

The broadcasting monopoly was the most obvious feature of television history in Austria well into the 1990s, but it was not really unique, at least until the 1970s. It was part of the regulatory European post-war order that the state kept part of the information sovereignty for itself. In Austria, however, the monopoly existed for an unusually long time and even after joining the EU in 1995, it was only painstakingly softened in the sense of a “dualistic solution” such as in Germany. In the first ten years of the Second Republic, radio, re-established by the occupying powers, became a mass medium. In 1954, the Allies began to return the broadcasting systems and other radio equipment to the Austrian state and renounced their previously exercised censorship rights. Radio and television had to be reorganized for an unoccupied, completely sovereign Austria that was already foreseeable in 1954. So far, each occupying power had its own radio broadcasting chain: the French with the “Studio West” in Innsbruck and Dornbirn , the British with the Alpenland broadcasting group in Graz and Klagenfurt, and the Americans with the Red-White-Red broadcasting group with studios in Salzburg and Linz. Only the Soviets did not have their own station group: they “slipped” under RAVAG , which went on the air as “Radio Wien”. From 1954/55 the transmitters and studios were handed over to the "public administration". The temptation for the ruling grand coalition to place this apparatus of mass influence under its political influence was great. The SPÖ in particular insisted on the most centralized control of broadcasting. In contrast , the ÖVP, which was dominant in most of the federal states, was inclined towards a more federalist solution.

First of all, the Constitutional Court ruled on October 5, 1954 that broadcasting fell under the “jurisdiction of the federal government”. With the Competence Act of 1956, the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation left the responsibility of the Federal Ministry of Transport and Nationalized Enterprises and was directly subordinate to the Federal Government . In 1957 the forerunner of today's ORF, the "Österreichische Rundfunk Gesellschaft mb H." was founded, which took over the radio and television operations on January 1st, 1958. RAVAG , which was founded in the First Republic, was never formally dissolved, but instead gradually changed over to the new organizational form of ORF. This laid the political and administrative foundations for the Austrian broadcasting monopoly.

Austrian Broadcasting Corporation (ORF)

1955–1967: From experimental program to mass medium

The pioneer days

The history of television in Austria has a prehistory that extends from 1951 to 1955. In Austria in the 1930s there were no (independent) pioneering attempts at television like in the German Reich , Italy , Great Britain or the USA . In 1951 the RAVAG technicians began to build the first equipment for experimental television after the occupying powers had imposed a kind of "technology embargo" on Austria. The breakthrough came in 1954/55 when the Allied influence broke away. When television broadcast the first test programs in April / May 1955 and the public test program started on August 1, 1955, there was still a somewhat limited range of equipment available. The first television studio was a classroom; initially, that is, for the first three to four years, television was primarily a live medium. Own recordings were only available from 1958, an early magnetic recording system from 1960.

Television technology of the 1960s

The date August 1, 1955 is considered to be the starting signal for television in Austria, although regular operations only started on January 1, 1958. Compared to the USA and Great Britain, Austria may be a late starter when it comes to television, but it was within the good Central European average. The first country in Europe to start television broadcasting after the Second World War was the Soviet Union on May 7, 1945. In the Soviet Union, as in Poland , which began television broadcasting in 1952, there had been pioneering attempts before the war. The GDR and the FRG also started in 1952 . Czechoslovakia, Italy , Belgium and Switzerland followed in 1953, Austria in 1955, Yugoslavia in 1956 ( Radio Zagreb ) and Hungary in 1957 .

Early program content

In August 1955 Austrian television broadcast a total of 12 hours. Initially there were no live broadcasts because there were no model contracts with the actors' union either. The core of the equipment was thus the film scanner . The television pioneers were barely able to put up broadcast material and were dependent on the photo offices of the ministries or foreign information centers. The first live broadcast was the reopening of the Vienna State Opera on November 5, 1955 . Commercial film distributors refused to cooperate, so that the first feature film could not be broadcast until November 18, 1957 . The first program highlights were The Caricature of the Week with Gustav Peichl as "Ironimus", Current Sport with Edi Finger and Fass das Glück with Heinz Conrads . Peichl later became a fixture in ORF's annual New Year's Eve program with his annual reviews in the form of caricatures up until the 1990s. A first (improvised) news broadcast was picture of the day , quite simply a press picture with commentary. Nevertheless, in September 1955 they dared to design a newsreel with the title Zeitspiegel . Towards the end of 1955, the first issue of the newscast Zeit im Bild was broadcast. The name of the program goes back to a suggestion of the later general manager Thaddäus Podgorski .

Television production conditions in the mid-1950s

One of the earliest television series in the field of culture was entitled Der Fenstergucker, based on a popular self-portrait of an early modern cathedral builder (according to legend Anton Pilgram ), which can be seen on the pulpit of St. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna . The series, which was produced until the early 1990s, reflects the beginning of Austria's self-discovery as a nation in the 1950s and 1960s. In a narrative-essayistic tone, portraits of Austrian buildings, cities and landscapes made strong reference to the anchoring of the young second Austrian republic in history. Another program that was anchored in the 1950s and aimed at folk education was Rendezvous with animals and humans, which was initially called Rendezvous with animals . It was presented continuously (mostly weekly) by the behavioral scientist and zoologist Otto Koenig from 1956 until his death until 1992 and is usually well remembered by many Austrians.

The first big challenges were broadcasting the reopening of the Vienna State Opera and the Burgtheater in autumn 1955, reporting on the Hungarian uprising a year later and handling the television broadcast of the 1964 Winter Olympics from Innsbruck to the whole world. Above all, the reporting on winter sports with the successes of Toni Sailer and other top athletes, while at the same time the rapid dissemination of television permits, had an identity-forming character and proved the value of the new medium, which Chancellor Julius Raab (ÖVP) valued so little that he did initially left "without a fight" to the coalition partner SPÖ .

On September 11, 1961, the ORF began broadcasting a second television program, which was initially referred to as a "technical test program" three days a week. This second channel has broadcast daily since September 1st, 1970.

The number of television permits rose sharply: in 1960 it was 100,000, in 1961 200,000, in 1964 500,000 and in 1967 already 1,000,000. The Austrian economic historian Roman Sandgruber speaks of a middle class medium in the 1950s and 1960s , while the upper classes reacted “surprisingly reserved” to the introduction of television, which would have been expressed in Julius Raab's misjudgment.

The radio referendum

Television and radio suffered from paralyzing party proportional representation. The license fees were not increased for over ten years, so that no investments could be made. Television did not yet have a permanent home and oscillated between Ronacher , Schönbrunn , the Rosenhügel studios and the then still smaller Funkhaus on Argentinierstrasse. When the history of television began in Austria, the social democratic Arbeiter-Zeitung was one of the largest media companies in Austria. The top of the editorialists were directed against the "independent newspapers", which were covered with the dirty word "commercial press". It was precisely from these “independent newspapers” that the initiative for the “Rundfunkvolksbegehren” came from, which was signed by 832,353 Austrians from July to October 1964. This non-party press landscape was bourgeois at heart, but recognized the benefits for a country's democratic culture through independent electronic media.

The breakup of the grand coalition and the sole government of the ÖVP under Federal Chancellor Josef Klaus accelerated the settlement of the broadcasting issue in Austria.

1967–1974: First reform - depoliticization and professionalization

On March 9, 1967, the newly appointed Gerd Bacher , who came from the Salzburger Nachrichten and who sees himself as a “pure print media man”, took up his post as General Director. Helmut Zilk replaced Gerhard Freund , who was also on the left, as television director . Bacher, who was portrayed in a caricature as a “tiger” by “Ironimus” alias Gustav Peichl in 1967 , saw himself as a “western-oriented” democrat, but was seen both internally and externally as a relentlessly authoritarian leader. The same caricature showed the "tiger" Gerd Bacher, who entered the "box", a television set, from which two figures, recognizable as SPÖ and ÖVP officials, escaped. Following the example of the BBC , the ORF got a joint newsroom for radio and television, headed by the politically right-wing Alfons Dalma .

During this period, the introduction of color television became acute. On February 7, 1967, Austria decided in favor of the German PAL system as the technical standard.

Structural reorganization

ORF center Küniglberg

With the new Broadcasting Act, the fees were increased, which enabled the ORF to be largely re-established. A central reform project was the amalgamation of the various television production locations, which had previously been distributed across Vienna to studios in a former elementary school in Singrienergasse with an attached film copier, to studios in Schönbrunn Zoo and in the Ronacher Theater . The construction of a new television center in the thirteenth district of Vienna and the construction of four new state studios in Dornbirn, Innsbruck, Salzburg and Linz were commissioned. These construction projects were essentially completed in 1972 and 1974, respectively. The state studios, to which new buildings in Graz, Klagenfurt and Eisenstadt were added later, were primarily used for radio, but were also designed to handle television broadcasts. They were designed by Gustav Peichl according to a uniform pattern in the form of a spiral . The last state studio building to be built was the one in St. Pölten in the 1990s . The ORF center , named “ Küniglberg ” after its location , was built according to plans by Roland Rainer and was finally handed over to its destination in 1975.

Information explosion

What was later summarized as the "information explosion" meant an enormous expansion of political reporting, the establishment of magazines such as Prisma or Horizonte . In 1968, ORF was the first German-speaking television company to report live from the US presidential elections. The television's chief commentator, Hugo Portisch , was sent to the focal points of current affairs, for example to the student protests in Paris in 1968 , in order to report from there as a “ mad reporter ” if possible “from the events”. This function was later performed by a network of ORF correspondent offices, which over time were opened in the important European capitals of Bonn, Paris, London, Rome, Washington, Belgrade and Moscow.

The youth was also seen as an independent group in the television programs and was given series such as Without a Muzzle and Contact . Apropos film , a series that existed between 1967 and 2002, was one of the first magazines to report competently and enthusiastically on current film events on German-language television. Between 1967 and the conclusion of the film / television agreement in 1981, television was closely interlinked with the young Austrian film scene . The television play existed before 1967 - Der Herr Karl was produced as a television play by Carl Merz and Helmut Qualtinger in 1961, but was limited to the largely conservative filming of theater plays and "classical" literature. After 1967, the television game began to turn increasingly to "life-like" topics. In the field of culture, new forms were introduced, such as the Nachtstudio series, which was editorially supervised by Wolfgang Kudrnofsky and which, according to Kudrnofsky, was “the first art show with elitist standards”. Within this series, film works by Ferry Radax were broadcast via the writers' group Forum Stadtpark . The series city ​​talks , moderated by the former television director and later mayor of Vienna Helmut Zilk , promoted forms of grassroots democracy and citizens' initiatives .

The current reporting on ORF television, but also on radio, was of enormous importance for the citizens of Austria's real socialist neighboring countries, i.e. in parts of the former Czechoslovakia and Hungary . In many cases, Austrian television provided the information that was withheld from the public by the state broadcasters. In this way, the ORF took on a role similar to that of “ Westfernsehen ” in the GDR. German was widely used as a foreign language alongside Russian in these countries and so the ORF played a certain role in the emergence of opposition movements such as Charter 77 .

1974–1994: From Oberhammer to Bacher

Bruno Kreisky and reformed television

One reason for the establishment and tenacity of the Austrian broadcasting monopoly lay in the specific fear of the Austrian left, as in the First Republic of 1918–1938, that it would again become a minority. Until 1970 the view was widespread in the SPÖ that a social democrat could never become Federal Chancellor in Austria. Therefore, as far as possible, all important institutions in the state, from nationalized industry to broadcasting, should be jointly controlled by the SPÖ on a proportional basis as completely as possible. This almost desperate adherence to political intervention in radio and television led to the broadcasting reform passed by the ÖVP and FPÖ as a result of the referendum. Bruno Kreisky was elected the new party chairman of the SPÖ on February 1, 1967, five weeks later Gerd Bacher became general director. Kreisky undoubtedly benefited from the more independent reporting of the reformed ORF. Kreisky knew how to deal with the ORF, which was headed by a formerly self-confessed Greater German , not only as an opposition leader, but also as head of government . Television became “his” medium, the press foyer after the Council of Ministers, surrounded by journalists, was the stage on which he presented his politics.

The "Schranz Case"

The "turning point" was the "Schranz case". The popular winter sportsman Karl Schranz was excluded from participation in the 1972 Winter Olympics in Sapporo , Japan , under questionable conditions and using the “amateur paragraph” . Radio and television sparked mass hysteria around this event, which injured the Austrian people's soul . Schranz was received like a hero, the crowds hooted at Heldenplatz and Ballhausplatz, Schranz appeared on the balcony of the Federal Chancellery. These scenes not only reminded Kreisky and many Social Democrats of the days of March 1938 . It proved what powerful instruments radio and television were.

The Second Reform 1974

First of all, Kreisky proposed the introduction of a third television channel in order to spread the electronic information monopoly somewhat. At the SPÖ party congress in Villach on April 18, 1972, he even addressed the introduction of private television:

"... whether it wouldn't be the best way to form a cooperative of all newspaper publishers and to give them the right to run a second broadcasting company."

- Bruno Kreisky : The mirror

But all proposals aimed at duplicating the range of electronic media on offer turned out to be difficult to implement for various reasons, including financial reasons. The “newspaper publishers” mentioned could not imagine that private television would be viable in a small country like Austria, for example based on the US model. The second reform "defused" the position of general manager and established the ORF as a public service institution. The ORF boss was provided with a board of trustees and a listener and viewer council. The second reform moved away from the "BBC model" of 1967 and introduced a radio director below the general director and a television director for each channel. Wolf in der Maur was chosen as radio director in the 1974 election. The ORF became more democratic, but naturally the decision-making processes also became longer and more laborious. All directorships had to be coordinated individually, which required meetings that lasted all night.

1974–1978: General manager Otto Oberhammer

One of the effects of Kreisky's intervention was the replacement of Bacher by the lawyer Otto Oberhammer, who was inexperienced in the media but was close to the SPÖ . Oberhammer was already thinking of a federalization of television, which in the 1970s meant some technical and administrative effort, which was associated with not insignificant additional financial expenditure. The broadcasting chains should have been merged by federal state. Eventually this plan failed due to resistance from the ORF board of trustees. Nevertheless, investments were made in the federal states and the construction of the new ORF regional studios in Graz and Eisenstadt was tackled.

The teleplay was expanded under the directorship Oberhammer, it created shows like A true Viennese does not set , the The Alpensaga or thriller parody determined Kottan . What was interesting about the productions mentioned was the close cooperation between those responsible for the program and talented young literary writers who were largely unknown in the 1970s and were more left-wing oriented: Ernst Hinterberger , Peter Turrini and Helmut Zenker . The Club 2 discussion format was certainly not unique in its form in the German-speaking countries, but in some cases caused a public sensation, such as the legendary appearance of Nina Hagen, who demonstrated masturbation techniques . At that time, 1979, Oberhammer was no longer the ORF boss. Another important innovation in the ORF television program was the introduction of the weekday consumer and life support program Wir , which was broadcast until 1995. The program was moderated by Walter Schiejok and Josef “Joki” Kirschner, among others .

1978–1986: Bacher III / IV

Otto Oberhammer was a man of integrity, but was soon considered "overwhelmed" due to his inexperience with the position of ORF boss. In general, the popular and television experienced Helmut Zilk was expected as the future general manager. Nevertheless, there was a surprise: when the general management was re-advertised in July 1978, Gerd Bacher applied again and was elected on September 28, 1978 with 13:16 votes with one abstention. The previous evening, the Arbeiter-Zeitung had headlined: Gerd Bacher has no chance. In his second term in office, Bacher tried to reach a consensus, wanted to end the "broadcast war" that was mainly fought between the SPÖ and the ÖVP. Four years later, in 1982, Bacher was again confirmed by an overwhelming majority. After 1978, the ORF law was slightly adapted and the radio and television directorships from 1974 were replaced by program and information directorships.

In the era of Bacher III / IV, the ORF began to compete with other electronic offers. The first cable networks were established in metropolitan areas from the late 1970s . In 1979 it was already possible to receive five channels over the cable network in Vienna. The new changes in media consumption habits brought about by the cable also had an initial noticeable influence on the Austrian advertising market. The spread of home video recorders and the general differentiation of society in general diminished the paramount importance of the ORF.

New programs under Bacher III / IV

A significant effort under Bacher III / IV was the production of the two contemporary series Austria I and Austria II designed by Hugo Portisch and Sepp Riff . Beginning on May 20, 1982, the series was broadcast on the main evening program. Right from the start, it was designed to present the history of the Republic of Austria in as much detail as possible from the fall of the Habsburg Monarchy and the establishment of the Republic in 1918 to the present, i.e. until 1980. However, this project could only be completed thirteen years later, in the anniversary year 1995 (50 years of the Second Republic). The two designers worked closely with historians such as Erika Weinzierl and Gerhard Jagschitz . In the course of the research, the "Historical Archive of the ORF" was established, which does not primarily collect material on television history in particular, but generally collects film documents on the history of Austria.

Also in 1982, the successful mountain film series Land of the Mountains was launched. A year earlier, in 1981, the ORF produced the first edition of the Musikantenstadl , in addition to Wetten, dass ..? , In which the ORF adjacent to the ZDF and the Swiss TV participated as co-producer, which until now most successful Saturday night show in Germany. In the field of culture, the two series Café Central (until 1990) and art pieces (weekly, until 2002) were established.

In 1985, then Federal Chancellor Fred Sinowatz proposed Thaddäus Podgorski as information director. However, Bacher doubted his leadership qualities. In the election of the general manager in 1986, however, the SPÖ-nominated Podgorski prevailed, also because he - at the time of the SPÖ-FPÖ coalition government - was elected with the votes of the FPÖ in the board of trustees.

1986–1990: General manager Taddäus Podgorski

As general manager, Podgorski had the drawback that, unlike his predecessor, he did not know of any increased domestic power behind him. Podgorski worked for Rot-Weiß-Rot and although he came to the young medium of television as early as the 1950s, where he knew how to impress as a sports reporter, he was seen as a rather weak managerial figure with no “authoritarian” charisma, which Bacher especially distinguished. As everyone knew, Bacher was also determined to take the top chair at ORF one last time. Although a media man through and through, Podgorski faced a fate similar to Otto Oberhammer's before.

With Gerhard Zeiler, the former press spokesman for Chancellors Sinowatz and Vranitzky , became general secretary of ORF . Zeiler was then himself from 1994-1998 general manager of the ORF.

Under Podgorski, whose general management was primarily a product of the second grand coalition (1986–2000), there were again increasing political interventions in the editorial work. Among other things, the non-partisan Club 2 boss Peter Huemer switched from television to Ö1 , where he started the series In Conversation .

New broadcasts under Podgorski

Podgorski tackled the regionalization of television. On May 2, 1988, the first edition of State Today was broadcast. As general manager, Podgorski presented himself in front of the camera in the series Seinerzeit (since 1976) and “Herein” , which clearly bore the signature of the “theater man” Podgorski. If he presented upcoming program focuses , new productions, in his time he was reminded of the first decades after the war with guests such as OW Fischer , Franz Antel or Peter Alexander and film clips. The format was naturally aimed primarily at older viewers. The Podgorski era also saw the start of the afternoon popular program Wurlitzer , which initially ran as a special program under the title The red-white-red program during the Berlin radio exhibition in 1987 and from Monday to Friday in the afternoon program of FS2 from September 29, 1987 ( ORF 2) before it was discontinued in 1995. The satire show DORF (from January 1988) parodied well-known ORF programs such as Sport am Montag or Wir and brought Roland Düringer and Josef Hader , who were at the beginning of their careers, onto TV screens for the first time.

The youth format Okay and the critical series Without Muzzle were discontinued and merged in the new X-Large format , which remained in the program until 1995. This happened not least because of the pressure of the private competition represented by cable networks and increasingly also by satellite reception in Austria. For the Croatian and Slovenian ethnic groups recognized by the State Treaty , the program Heimat, Fremd Heimat was developed. Double moderation was introduced in the most important news program, ZIB 1 . In the highly successful series Universum , demanding nature documentaries were shown from 1987 onwards. On November 18, 1987, almost 69 years to the day after the proclamation of the First Republic, the twelve-part documentary series Austria I , designed by Hugo Portisch and Sepp Riff, began , which described the history of Austria between 1918 and the outbreak of the Second World War. The most important program innovation of the Podgorski era, which goes beyond the scope of television, remains the introduction of the daily social program Seitenblicke, which is still broadcast today . The television play was cultivated with demanding productions such as With my hot tears by Fritz Lehner or A pale blue women's font by Axel Corti . Lighter entertainment was provided by series such as Mozart and Meisel or If the neighbors knew, with popular audience stars.

However, as many predicted in 1986, the general management of Podgorski was only an episode. In July Gerd Bacher was elected interim general manager and on October 25, 1990 for the last time with the required two-thirds majority in this function. One of his opponents was Helmut Zilk.

1990-1994: Bacher V

"ORF eye"

When Bacher took his seat in the executive chair of the ORF for the last time, the then Austrian federal government had already submitted the application for membership of Austria to the EC (letter to Brussels) after a violent domestic political tug of war . The end of the ORF monopoly was in sight. The governing parties , especially the SPÖ under Franz Vranitzky , continued to reject the liberalization of the Austrian radio and television market. In 1993 Austria was condemned by the European Court of Human Rights due to the ORF monopoly for "restricting the right to freedom of expression" and asked to change this situation. In his inaugural speech in 1990, Bacher gave the slogan “From monopoly to market leader” as general director, which had existed throughout the 1990s.

Neville Brody's "ORF brick" designed in 1992

On the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the reformed broadcaster, Neville Brody's completely redesigned corporate identity was launched in October 1992 . The award of the contract to Brody, who in the 1980s mainly designed record covers for new wave , punk and post-punk bands that were not yet firmly anchored in the mainstream , shows the courage of the ORF management at the time. The two television channels, which were previously called FS1 and FS2, have been renamed ORF1 and ORF 2 . The new station logo "ORF-Ziegel" (the first since the "ORF-Auge" by Erich Sokol ) was from now on permanently displayed as a corner logo in the top right-hand corner of the screen. This redesign, which was initially highly controversial, is perhaps the most important, because the legacy of Gerd Bacher's last term of office can still be felt today.

1995–2003: The big cut

The election of Zeiler and the 1995 program reform

In autumn 1994 Gerhard Zeiler was elected Bacher's successor by the Board of Trustees. Zeiler was considered to be close to the SPÖ, as he was press spokesman for the then Education Minister Fred Sinowatz from 1979 to 1983 . However, he gained his professional experience as a manager of media companies in Germany at the private broadcaster Tele 5 and later RTL 2 . With Austria's imminent accession to the EU, the old ORF monopoly could no longer be maintained. 1995 was the biggest turning point for ORF since 1967. On March 6, 1995, the new Zeiler scheme started. From this date on, ORF television became a 24-hour program. Programs like Club 2 , Wir or X-Large have been discontinued. With Schiejok daily , the ORF introduced a daily talk show for the first time , the old Club 2 had numerous follow-up programs in the twelve years from its abolition to its “resurrection” in December 2007, which were broadcast on Sunday evening. Formats such as Wir were fanned out into generous magazine areas such as Welcome Austria in the late afternoon, and the same thing happened with so-called “youth programs” that were moved into the late evening. For many observers, Zeiler's reform is seen as the departure of the ORF from its “actual” public service mandate. At the same time, high-quality programs such as the religious magazine Kreuz und Quer (since 1995) or Treffpunkt Kultur, initially with Karin Resetarits and later with Barbara Rett , were able to establish themselves permanently under Zeiler . The “classic” report also experienced a new beginning in the Am Schauplatz series (later also Schauplatzgericht ).

In 1997 the private radio broadcasting chains started throughout Austria. In the same year there were the first attempts at television outside the ORF. Not yet terrestrially receivable, W1 (Vienna1) started this year, the nucleus of the first Austrian private broadcaster ATV , which was later co-financed by the trade union bank BAWAG . In return, ORF started its first free-to-air special- interest channel TW1 (via cable and satellite) in late autumn .

From Gerhard Weis to Monika Lindner

In the spring of 1998, Gerhard Weis was appointed as Zeiler's successor, who went back to RTL , exasperated by the political quarrel over ORF . Weis, who was previously radio director, emphasized the public service mandate of the ORF, but at the same time aggressively accepted the competition from the "private parties", who in Austria still broadcast exclusively from abroad, ie Germany. In autumn 2000, the first Austrian so-called “ reality format ” called Taxi Orange was launched under his leadership . While the first season was still accompanied by heated public discussions and a stir in the fall of 2000, the audience ratings dropped significantly in the second season. In 2004, when the initial hype of reality TV had already subsided significantly by 2000, ORF produced another format in this sector under the title Expedition Austria , which, however, hardly met with enthusiastic audience feedback.

ORF General Director (2002–2006) Monika Lindner

Since the turbulent formation of a government in February 2000, Gerhard Weis' term of office has been overshadowed time and again by interventions and pressure from the governing parties (such as Peter Westenthaler ). In the fall of 2001, the People's Party-affiliated former country director of ORF radio Lower Austria and bowl -Vertraute Monika Lindner elected successor Gerhard Weis. Under Monika Lindner, the ORF came under criticism not only because of allegations of closeness to the government, but also because of its financing methods. Call-in competitions were used in the night program , which is likely to have been unique for a fee-financed, public broadcaster. These types of programs were discontinued after media criticism.

In 2002, the discontinuation of the series of art pieces , which had been broadcast since 1981 and which often provided space for controversial works by Austrian avant-garde and experimental filmmakers in its history , but also looked after a comedy series that not only focused on the work and the special humor of Monty Python made it known to a larger audience in Austria, but also provided space for the first television works by Projekt X and Stermann & Grissemann ( Ms. Pepi and the boys , Suite 16 or Blech or Blume ). In addition, within the was art pieces starting from the mid-1980s for the first time in German-speaking British satire show Spitting Image to see (with German subtitles).

The program reform 2007 and the ORF under Alexander Wrabetz

Alexander Wrabetz ORF General Director since 2007

After the program reform launched by Alexander Wrabetz in spring 2007 was viewed as a failure by many observers and commentators from other media, the role of the ORF in the Austrian media landscape came up again increasingly. After cost-intensive in-house productions such as Mitten im 8en , the question of financing the ORF was once again the focus of attention from mid-2007. The permanent employment of thousands of freelance employees under Monika Lindner was criticized, which had a catastrophic economic effect for the ORF.

The “private individuals”, who have also been increasingly active in Austria since the mid-2000s, were particularly disturbed by the “market-distorting” effect of the ORF fees . In 2008, the Austrian newspaper publishers wrote a letter to the EU Competition Commission calling for the ORF fee to be abolished for the ORF 1, Ö3 and ORF Online parts of the company. The ORF fee was increased by an average of ten percent in the spring of 2008 in view of the upcoming additional expenses for the European Football Championship and the Olympic Games . Despite this additional income, the company had to announce a forecast loss of around 100 million euros in November 2008. As a consequence, the ORF management announced cost-cutting measures in the program (for example the newsreel should be discontinued) and the outsourcing of employees. In addition, the Austrian federal government was asked to reimburse the ORF for the losses from fee exemptions for the socially needy, which were estimated at around 35 million euros, and to allow the extension of advertising times.

In August 2011, Wrabetz was elected for a further five years by the ORF Foundation Board, the company's supervisory body. Since 1967 Wrabetz is only the second ORF boss after Gerd Bacher , who was re-elected. As a focus of his second term in office, he announced the founding of ORF III as a culture-sharing broadcaster, the reintroduction of a "test laboratory" like the art-pieces broadcast, which was discontinued in 2002, and the suppression of American TV series, which make up a large part of ORF's program form one . As a first measure, the sitcom Two and a Half Men was removed from the main Saturday evening program after Wrabetz was elected. To finance the company, which was only restructured in 2010 with a 160 million euro package from tax revenues, Wrabetz demanded an increase in fees and the extension of advertising times, which only aroused criticism from business-related and foreign press comments.

Another topic in the Austrian media was the search for a location for a new ORF headquarters , as the previous company headquarters in Vienna's 13th district, along with serious structural defects, was no longer considered up-to-date for various reasons. Since around 2007, the Sankt Marx media center has been mentioned again and again . In 2009, Gustav Peichl suggested that the building complex be partially converted into apartments.

ORF in HDTV

ORF HD production in Kitzbühel

On January 23, 2008, the ORF HDTV live broadcast “The Nightrace” from Schladming took place for the first time. An HDTV reception was presented to the public in the form of an event in the ORF regional studios. The technology partner was Telekom Austria.

With a view to the European Football Championship in 2008, ORF 1 HD started HDTV broadcasting on June 1, 2008 at 5:25 pm with the program “Internationales Mehrkampfmeeting 2008 Götzis”. On Monday, June 2nd, 2008, an official ORF HDTV launch followed in front of media representatives with a Universum broadcast in HD.

For the 2008 European Football Championship, ORF 1 HD was also available via the digital HD cable television service from UPC Austria, which was launched on May 6, 2008 , and Telekom Austria has also had an IPTV HDTV product since the beginning of June 2008.

On December 5, 2009, ORF will also switch on the high-resolution version ORF 2 HD , on which major cultural events and certain in-house productions (such as Universum) will be shown in high definition. The program itself does not differ from the SD variant. ORF 2 HD is transmitted in full-screen format 720p50, which has advantages over the field format 1080i50 in terms of encoding by the transmitter and image processing in standard flat-screen TVs. ORF is the first German-speaking public broadcaster in Europe to broadcast its entire range of programs in parallel in HD signals.

ORF television via the Internet

The seven days archived federal state today broadcasts (Austria local programs) were accessed 700,000 times as Internet TV streams in September 2008 , while the current online videos (videos from news agencies), incorrectly called "ORF IPTV " by ORF , came in the same Period to 480,000 requests.

The attempt by the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation to create a media library called "ORF-Online-TV" through the private publisher Georg Hoanzl failed because of the violent criticism of the ORF Board of Trustees, as it did not provide information about the already advanced external plans and neither did they agreed. On Friday, November 13th, 2009, an in-house ORF media library under the name “ORF-TVthek” went online.

Private television in Austria

Breaking the ORF monopoly

In the mid-1990s, the first private, local TV channels appeared in Austria's widespread cable TV networks. However, there was neither a clear legal basis for these broadcasters, nor was there a private television law for the terrestrial broadcast of TV channels. The Private Television Act did not come into force until August 1, 2001, permitting one nationwide (ATV, which was then only broadcast on the Vienna cable network) and three regional television programs (in Vienna, Linz and Salzburg). The fact that it was not until 2001, “presumably the last country in the civilized world”, that private television was approved nationwide, earned Austria the nicknames “Media Albania ” and “Media Kazakhstan ” among journalists and media entrepreneurs - countries that are synonyms for backwardness and restricted freedom of expression apply, but years before Austria allowed private television.

The positioning of the "private"

ATVplus logo

On June 1, 2003, ATVplus was launched as Austria's first private terrestrial broadcaster . Until then, Austria was the last country in Europe in which there was no private television that could be freely received via antenna. One year later, on June 21, 2004, Puls-TV followed in the greater Vienna area as the second terrestrial broadcasting station. Puls-TV initially shared the frequency that ORF had previously only used for the Vienna edition of the federal state today . This resulted in a painful "broadcast hole" in the evening program before the digitalization. In February 2008, Puls-TV started under the new name Puls 4 as the second private full program that can be received throughout Austria. In December 2007 Austria 9 TV became the third private broadcaster to also go on air throughout Austria . The broadcaster specializes in older, predominantly German and Austrian feature films and in “classic” TV series such as Mac Gyver . One year before ATV, in 2002, gotv was the first Austrian special interest broadcaster to start broadcasting its program, which, however, could only be received in the cable networks of Lower Austria and Vienna.

The new competition set their priorities in a direct way against the previous monopoly, who was now only the market leader. ATV developed the Hi Society format, presented and designed by the former ORF presenter Dominic Heinzl, based directly on the Seitenblicke , one of the most successful and influential ORF broadcasts. ATV's most successful programs also included various docu-soap formats, the first to be broadcast in Austria - programs such as Die Lugners , Tausche Familie and Sasha Walleczek eats differently! . The ORF was hit particularly hard by the loss of the rights to the Bundesliga to Premiere and its partner ATV, which was allowed to broadcast daily summaries of all games as well as live broadcasts of selected top encounters from 2004–2006.

Other broadcasters, on the other hand, consciously focus on quality and service. Gotv traced the idea of music television back to its origins and showed (albeit for financial reasons) mainly music videos and got by with almost no ringtone advertising in its advertising blocks . Especially in the first year under the direction of Helmut Brandstätter, Puls-TV relied on sophisticated reporting on local events and the local music scene in Vienna.

Nevertheless, the coverage of the new channels remained below expectations, especially in the first few years, and has only recently gained substance (mainly due to the digitization completed in 2007). In particular, the takeover of Puls by ProSiebenSat.1 Media and the associated expanded range of current series and feature films brought the broadcaster higher market shares.

During this time, the ORF lost more and more reach and, above all, credibility due to the all too clear appropriation by the governing parties. In the election year 2006, after a speech by ORF top journalist Armin Wolf on the occasion of the award of the Robert Hochner Prize , at which Wolf accused the ORF top under Monika Lindner and Werner Mück of “unrestrained” influence, a heated domestic political debate broke out. In August 2006, Alexander Wrabetz was appointed the new General Director with the help of the votes of the SPÖ , BZÖ and Greens .

The digitization of the distribution path

On May 28, 2003, KommAustria published together with the radio regulator RTR-GmbH, driven by the Private Broadcasting Act 2000, their first digitization report , which was created by the so-called “Digital Platform Austria” set up in January 2002 by a working group of ORF-related interest groups. This working group was generously endowed with research funds. As a result, a DVB-T test operation in Graz was successfully possible up to December 2004. An element of the planned ORF digitization was, in addition to the digitization of the distribution channel, a new interactive teletext "MHP" with a return channel, which was to take place via an analog telephone modem. This technology was developed by the IRT Institute Munich in the 1990s , at a time when interactive Internet and broadband connections were still largely unknown. An essential element was a central "OK Text" button on the remote control, which should enable a simplified product purchase with just one push of a button.

Despite a significant decline in landline telephony that was already becoming apparent, the ORF started with this concept of interactive teletext. Certified DVB-T (MHP) decoders were funded for their first purchase, but the moderate success of this funding was already a sign of an outdated technology from a time before the Internet.

At the beginning of 2005, ORF broadcasting technology was spun off into Österreichische Rundfunksender GmbH . On October 26, 2006, this began in the state capitals with the broadcast of DVB-T. The first analogue shutdown took place on March 5, 2007 at the Pfänder transmitter , the last on June 7, 2011. With partly new, additional systems, the first frequency with MUX -A ORF 1, two ORF-2 federal states, is now being used at 320 locations -Splits and ATV sent. 19 systems in the state capitals also transmit on the second frequency with MUX-B Puls 4 , 3sat , ORF SPORT + , ORF III and ServusTV .

A trial operation for DVB-T2 on channel 65 took place from April 12, 2010 to the end of March 2013 (see Österreichische Rundfunksender GmbH, section DVB-T2 ). In April 2013 DVB-T2 started in Austria in regular operation, see simpliTV .

Jingle

In the 1970s and 1980s, FS1 used Strauss' Donauwalzer , FS2 Schubert's “ Unfinished ” as the signature melody for the opening .

See also

literature

  • ORF3: film. Watch TV. Austria in: Filmarchiv 27 October-November 2005 (magazine of the Filmarchiv Austria)
  • Seismograph of the present? The transformation of the ORF television game in the seventies. in: Filmarchiv 27 October-November 2005 (magazine of the Filmarchiv Austria)
  • Monika Bernold, Sylvia Szely: tele visionen. Historiographies of television. in: Austrian Journal of History, Issue 4, Vol. 12, 2001.
  • Viktor Ergert , Hellmut Andics , Robert Kriechbaumer: The history of Austrian broadcasting . 4 vols., Ed.: ORF
  • Viktor Erget: 50 years of broadcasting in Austria . 3 vol., Salzburg 1974.
  • Franz-Ferdinand Wolf: 25 years of ORF 1975–2000 . Salzburg 2001.
  • Kurt Tozzer , Martin Majnaric: Attention broadcast . Vienna, 2005.
  • Hellmut Andics : The island of the blessed . Munich 1980. Comments on the political interlocking of the electronic media in the Second Republic.
  • Werner Reichl: The red opinion makers. SPÖ broadcasting policy from 1945 to the present day Deutscher Wissenschafts-Verlag (DWV), 2012
  • Sylvia Szely (Ed.): Games and Realities. Around 50 years of television drama and television films in Austria . Filmarchiv Austria 2005. ISBN 3-901932-87-9 .
  • Renée Winter: Politics of History and Television. Representations of National Socialism on early Austrian TV (1955-1970) , transcript Verlag 2014
  • Andreas Novak, Oliver Rathkolb (ed.): The power of images. Kral-Verlag, Vienna 2017.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ amospress.at | Scandal at the ORF about the old tapes
  2. ↑ The history of the ORF TV archive ( Memento of the original from November 29, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.birth-of-tv.org
  3. ↑ Interview with Gustav Peichl: "I was a cheeky" , November 4th, 2015
  4. ↑ Otto König: Media Presence ( Memento from November 5, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
  5. ↑ a b media research ORF | The Austrian Broadcasting Chronicle ( Memento of the original from June 22nd, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / mediaresearch.orf.at
  6. ^ Roman Sandgruber, Economy and Politics. Austrian economic history from the Middle Ages to the present. Vienna, Ueberreuter 1995, pages 48-481
  7. ↑ Put the tiger in the box ( Memento of the original from June 3, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.boehlau.at
  8. ↑ tvmatrix.at 50 years of Austrian television
  9. ↑ [1]
  10. ↑ Forum Dichter Graz (OF)  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / oe1app1.orf.at  
  11. ↑ Der Spiegel 18/1972, April 24, 1972, p. 100
  12. ↑ Today election of the ORF boss: Gerd Bacher has no chance . In: Arbeiter-Zeitung . Vienna September 28, 1978, p. 1 ( berufer-zeitung.at - the open online archive - digitized).
  13. ↑ Austrians watch German TV advertising: competition for the "Künigelbären" . In: Arbeiter-Zeitung . Vienna January 13, 1979, p. 15 ( berufer-zeitung.at - the open online archive - digitized).
  14. ↑ Der Spiegel 47/1987, pp. 186–192
  15. ↑ "Austria I" . In: Arbeiter-Zeitung . Vienna November 18, 1987, p. 32 ( berufer-zeitung.at - the open online archive - digitized).
  16. ↑ Gerhard Weis in the "Falter" interview ( Memento from August 16, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
  17. ↑ EU becomes active against ORF fee
  18. ↑ ORF: fees will be increased by ten percent
  19. ↑ Wrabetz masters the art of warfare Der Standard , accessed on August 15, 2011
  20. ↑ Wrabetz would be chased out of the Funkhaus in Germany , Der Standard, accessed on August 15, 2011
  21. ↑ Wrabetz wants ORF to move to Sankt Marx ( memento of March 16, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Online edition Die Presse , January 27, 2009.
  22. ↑ Plans to partially maintain the ORF center: Peichl wants to “sacrifice” a third of the system. Online output profile , accessed on September 6, 2009.
  23. ↑ Archive link ( Memento of the original dated December 8, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. "Telekom Austria and ORF implemented technical network configuration for HDTV" Pressetext.at of January 23, 2008  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.pressetext.at
  24. ↑ http://www.fuzo-archiv.at/artikel/282319v2 ORF starts in HDTV era ORF-On from June 2, 2008
  25. ↑ ORF ON of May 6, 2008: "UPC launches digital HDTV service"
  26. ↑ Report of the business magazine Report Plus, TA plans HDTV via IPTV from June 2008
  27. ↑ Cable operators want to tap into ORF archives , Der Standard , October 17, 2008
  28. ↑ ORF TVthek. Retrieved December 29, 2018 .
  29. ↑ DerStandard ORF is based on on-demand videos [2] www.derstandard.at, October 8, 2009
  30. ↑ ORF starts online video portal TVthek http://www.fuzo-archiv.at/artikel/1631699v2 ORF Futurezone from November 13, 2009
  31. ↑ Harald Fidler : Österreichs Medienwelt from A to Z. Falter Verlag, Vienna 2008, p. 6 (“Introduction”, direct quotation), 283 (“Media Albania”) and 481 (“Private TV”).
  32. ↑ http://www.rtr.at/de/rf/DigitalerRundfunk Digitaler Rundfunk
  33. ↑ Reinhold Leutgeb: Last DVB-T changes , June 11, 2011, ors.at