Because of history Austrians public broadcaster ORF is one of the richest public broadcaster in the EU. Nearby is the Austrian majority watching ORF.

The Austrian public broadcaster, comparable to the Flemish public broadcaster VRT, is ORF (Österreichischer Rundfunk or translated Austria Broadcast). More than 50% of Austrian people watching TV watch one from the two ORF channels. As in Austria is only one commercial broadcaster (ATV) the peoples are highly influenced by ORF.

ORF act

I wouldn’t say that ORF has too much power. We do have an own legislation for ORF, the so-called ORF act. These laws should control the influence of ORF on the public. For instance is ORF obligated so send reports from all parties which are in our parliament. Generally is ORF forced to provide important politic, social, economic, cultural and sportive information for the Austrian public.

The advantage of ORF is that there is a settlement for advertising. The two ORF channels (ORF1 and ORF2) are allowed to send at maximum 42 minutes advertisements per day. So watching a movie on an ORF channel is more relaxing because there is no break in-between.

Austrian media landscape

As the whole company ORF insists of two TV channels and four radio stations the Austrian media landscape has no real variety. Seeing that Germany is our neighbour many of their commercial broadcasters do also send their program in Austria. 49,80% of people watching TV in Austria watch a channel from abroad. The most seen foreign channel is RTL, a big German commercial broadcaster.

History

I think the reason why people in Austria watch ORF at most is due to our history. When Austria joined the EU in 1995 they got the burden to allow private broadcasters which wasn’t allowed by then. As it’s only 13 years ago people are used to watch ORF. Furthermore the first Austrian private broadcaster ATV started sending nationwide in 2003. Until now approximately 14% watch ATV.

Sources: orf.at, mediaanalyse.at

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