Radio Verkehrs AG
The radio traffic AG (RAVAG) was in 1924 the first Austrian broadcasting company established. It existed until the ORF was founded in 1958.
history
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On October 1, 1924, official broadcasting began in a provisional studio in Vienna on the Stubenring . From 1924 to 1938, Oskar Czeija was the general director of RAVAG . RAVAG's shareholders were the Ministry of Commerce, the municipality of Vienna, the Kapsch company and various government-dependent banks. In 1925, RAVAG already had 100,000 radio subscribers. The monthly fee was 2 shillings .
The content of Radio Wien was initially limited to education, upscale music and literature . Its own educational program , the Radio Adult Education Center , was launched as early as 1924 . In 1925, an opera performance, "Don Juan" by WA Mozart , was broadcast for the first time at the Salzburg Festival , from 1928 there were sports broadcasts and, in the 1930 National Council elections, there was even an own electoral studio .
In these years of change, the composers Rudolf Sieczynski and Richard Glück from the ÖKB ( Austrian Association of Composers ) reached an agreement with RAVAG music director M. Ast for special broadcast evenings with contemporary Austrian works, including several world premieres . The first evenings in 1926 were Viennese tunes , chansons and cabaret songs and concerts of “serious” music. An own radio orchestra was also considered.
While the educational mission in the cultural sector was fulfilled more than it is today, radio reports about political events during the First Republic remained taboo. It was not until the authoritarian corporate state - later also known as Austrofascism - under Engelbert Dollfuss and Kurt Schuschnigg that radio was used as a propaganda tool. In the cultural area, Christian topics were promoted and z. B. 1933 introduced the "spiritual hour". Broadcasts of mass celebrations also played an important role in the corporate state's radio.
On July 25, 1934, the transmission systems in Johannesgasse were occupied by National Socialist putschists disguised as army soldiers. A statement that Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss had resigned was read out. In the ensuing fighting, parts of the transmission systems were destroyed and one person was killed. The perpetrators were arrested a little later, one of them sentenced to death in Vienna and executed on August 18, 1934.
In 1935 the construction of the radio house in the Argentinierstrasse began, which could only be completed in 1939, after the "Anschluss".
Immediately after the “ Anschluss ” in March 1938, the RAVAG Executive Committee was recalled and Franz Pesendorfer was appointed acting head. Adolf Raskin , who soon followed Pesendorfer , received the order to liquidate RAVAG and to seamlessly integrate Austria's radio into the Reichsrundfunk. The broadcasting operation was taken over by the Reichsender Wien of the German Reichs-Rundfunk-Gesellschaft (since 1939: Großdeutscher Rundfunk ). The "Reichssender Wien" was thus part of the broadcasting chain of the Großdeutscher Rundfunk and in this function, from 1942 onwards, handled all radio programs for south-eastern Europe occupied by German troops .
Radio Verkehrs-AG resumed operations on April 24, 1945. Oskar Czeija was again brief director until he was deposed under pressure from the Soviet occupying forces. RAVAG became the property of the Republic of Austria. As before 1938, Radio Wien was handled from the radio house on Argentinierstrasse, but faced strong competition from the radio " Rot-Weiß-Rot " founded by the American occupation forces . RAVAG and with it “ Radio Wien ” soon got the reputation of the Soviet propaganda broadcaster. This had to do with the fact that the headquarters of RAVAG, the Funkhaus, was in the Soviet sector of occupied Vienna and also because RAVAG was forced to broadcast various programs by the Soviet occupiers under the title “Russian Hour”. In truth, from 1947 onwards, control of the “Russian Hour” lay with the KPÖ . In 1954, the Administrative Court decided that broadcasting was a federal matter. This paved the way for the dissolution of the popular broadcasting chains of the western occupying powers in the federal states. These were returned to the Republic of Austria in the course of 1955. The ORF emerged from this conglomerate in 1958 .
Many programs that were developed in the various broadcasting chains of the occupying powers in the first decade after the war continued in some cases until the 1980s. Including “ What's new? "Moderated by Heinz Conrads ," The little dream man is coming "and" Sport and Music ". The only programs from the time of the broadcasting chains that still exist today are “ Du holde Kunst ” and the “ Salzburg Night Studio ”.
List of transmitter locations
literature
- Reinhard Schlögl: Oskar Czeija. Radio pioneer, inventor, adventurer . Böhlau, Vienna 2004, ISBN 3-205-77235-0 .
- Hans Schafranek : Summer party with prize shooting. The unknown story of the Nazi putsch in July 1934 . Czernin, Vienna 2006, ISBN 3-7076-0081-5 .
- Desmond Mark: Paul F. Lazarsfeld's Vienna RAVAG study 1932 . Gethmann-Peterson, Vienna / Mühlheim 1996, ISBN 3-900782-29-6 .
See also
Web links
- WabWeb u. a. on the history of radio in Austria accessed on December 8, 2012
- Documentation archive Funk: Radio history Austria accessed on December 8, 2012
- “Radio Wien” 1924–1938 - facsimiles of the RAVAG program newspaper at ANNO
- Austrian media library: RAVAG pauses
- Kapsch as founding members of RAVAG: Diploma thesis on the company history of Kapsch
Individual evidence
- ↑ New management of the radio. In: Neue Freie Presse , Monday edition, No. 26404 A / 1938, March 14, 1938, p. 22, bottom right. (Online at ANNO ). .
- ↑ Willi A. Boelcke : The power of the radio. World politics and international broadcasting 1924–1976 . Ullstein, Frankfurt am Main (inter alia) 1977, ISBN 3-550-07365-8 , p. 111.
- ↑ Radio Orario 1925 no . 9 p. 4
- ^ Geneva wave plan , Radio-Wien, November 29, 1926, p. 425
- ^ Brussels wave plan, Radio-Wien, January 4, 1929, p. 240
- ↑ Prager Wellenplan, Radio-Wien, July 5, 1929
- ↑ Lucerne wave plan, Radio-Wien, January 12, 1934, p. 13
- ↑ Bernd-Andreas Möller (Ed.): Handbook of the radio transmission and reception centers of the German Reichspost
- ↑ Zwischenender Klagenfurt .. In: Radio Wien , December 20, 1926, p. 66 (online at ANNO ).