The Austrian Cartel Act provides special regulation for media mergers being notifiable to the Federal Competition Authority if companies exceeded revenue limits (Kartellgesetz, 2021: para. 8).[i] Nevertheless, especially the Austrian market has continually seen extremely high press concentration, accumulated by several waves of concentration until the mid-1990s (Steinmaurer, 2009: 505; Trappel, 2007: 64).
Even after the implementation of stricter competition rules with the establishment of competition authority in 2002, rejections of media mergers by Austrian authorities have been rare. Economic struggles and crises within the overall media sector have gradually contributed to this problem over the past ten years.
[i] The general limits are: worldwide revenue higher than EUR 300 million, national revenue more than EUR 30 million, or at least two companies with worldwide revenue higher than EUR 5 million. The revenues of media companies are multiplied by 200; those of media related companies by 20 (para. 9 (1) and (3) Kartellgesetz 2019/2005). Media diversity must be addressed in the acknowledgement of the merger (para. 10 (1) 2.) and mergers must be refused if media diversity loss is to be expected (para. 13). So far, no media merger was refused by Bundeswettbewerbsbehörde.
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Circulation of all Austrian newspapers decreased significantly over the past ten years (e.g., the market leader Kronenzeitung from 948,615 in 2008 to 793,279 in 2018). Kronenzeitung is still dominant on the Austrian print market; however, reaching only 27.2 per cent of the population (compared to 41.9% in 2008) and with a market share of 27.7 per cent (2008: 37.4%), total circulation has been largely set back even for this hugely successful newspaper (Arbeitsgemeinschaft Media-Analysen, 2019a; Arbeitsgemeinschaft Media-Analysen, 2008: 67). The three largest newspapers – all boulevard titles – reach a combined market share of 67.1 per cent (2008: 62.3%), demonstrating a highly concentrated national newspaper market. The nationwide quality newspaper with the highest circulation, Der Standard, reaches 7.8 per cent (2008: 5.5%) of the Austrian population with a circulation of 70,234 (2008: 117,131). In fact, four big private media companies (Styria Media Group, Mediaprint, Verlagsgruppe News, and AHVV Verlags-GmbH) dominate the Austrian press market. The calculated circulation market share for the three top media companies (CR3) on the national newspaper market is 76.6 per cent (2008: 77.5%) and, therefore, remains reasonably high and secure.
In terms of ownership, over the past ten years, the Austrian media market has widely sustained its highly concentrated and non-transparent nature, due to complex ownership structures including private foundations and holding companies with few changes. Hence, the big national boulevard-style newspapers Kronenzeitung and Kurier are still associated with Mediaprint, sharing technical production, distribution, and advertising. Major changes occurred in 2018, when the German Funke Gruppe sold 49.5 per cent of their shares to the SignaHolding conglomerate, based in the Austrian real estate market (derstandard.at, 2018).
Styria Media Group,which used to be the second largest Austrian media company in terms of turnover after the public broadcaster for a long time (Melischek et al., 2005: 247–251) underwent consolidation over the past ten years. This included restructuring the newsrooms of Die Presse, as well as closing the daily newspaper on economic affairs Wirtschaftsblatt in 2016. Still, Styria, whose owner (Katholischer Pressverein) is associated with the Catholic Church, is an active market player in Austrian newspapers (Kleine Zeitung, Die Presse), regional print media (Radio Marketing Service, Bezirksblätter), radio (Antenne Kärnten, Antenne Steiermark), magazines, as well as online media.
The magazine market in particular saw changes over the past ten years. With Red Bull, a new financially powerful player entering the market (also the television market), the leading player on the magazine market so far, Verlagsgruppe News, saw restructuring in terms of ownership. In 2000, this media company was part of a very controversial decision on media mergers in Austria, allowing an exchange of corporate shares between the magazine section of Kurier Verlag and Verlagsgruppe News. This led to a quasi-monopoly situation for Verlagsgruppe News in the magazine market, as the competing political weekly magazines Profil[i] and Format were also edited by Verlagsgruppe Newsat the time. Moreover, Verlagsgruppe News was also cooperating with Mediaprint. Several times, criticisms were raised about how stricter rules on media mergers and media concentration in Austria were established too late to effectively prevent a concentrated media market (Melischek et al., 2005: 248; Steinmaurer, 2009: 508). As of 2020, the Austrian bank Raiffeisen Zentralbank is a minority owner of Verlagsgruppe News (together with Kurier and Mediengruppe Österreich, which belongs to the Fellner family). The German publisher Gruner + Jahr (Bertelsmann) sold its majority to the Austrian media manager Horst Pirker in 2016 (Fidler, 2016). On the whole, then, the Austrian print media landscape continues to remain highly concentrated: on the one hand, restructuring processes led to closures of media titles; on the other, certain German publishers who were active in the Austrian media market sold their shares. Furthermore, new financially strong players entered the (television, magazine, print) market from non-media related sectors.
The legal framework for the implementation of private broadcasting in Austria was only established after a decision of the European Court of Human Rights asserted that the broadcasting monopoly would infringe freedom of speech (Steinmaurer, 2009: 512). As a consequence, the first two local private radio broadcasters were founded in 1995. The first national terrestrial television licence was granted to the former Vienna-based cable television broadcaster ATV in 2003 (Steinmaurer, 2009: 512). ORF always had private competitors (particularly in the television sector) since the mid-1980s, due to the availability of cable and satellite programmes from Germany. German media companies also played a significant role in the private Austrian television market from the start. In 2020, PULS 4, owned by German ProSiebenSat1 Media AG, has content arrangements with other German channels affiliated with its owner. ATV (channels ATV and ATV II) was partly owned by the German media company Tele München Gruppe,which sold its shares toProSiebenSat1 Media AG in2017, leaving only two competitors of Austria-based private television channels on the market. The second of these is the energy drink producer Red Bull, which entered the Austrian television market via its media holding Red Bull Media House GmbH in 2009. It launched the latest private national television channel: ServusTV. The media holding is also active in the Austrian print sector with several monthly magazines (Red Bulletin, Servus in Stadt und Land, Terra Mater, etc.).
[i] Verlagsgruppe News was obliged by the competition authority to guarantee the continued existence of Profil until 2006. This limit was exceeded and Profil and Format were both still produced in separated newsrooms until 2015. In 2016, Format merged with another title of Verlagsgruppe News, trend, and therefore ceased its existence by then.
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As a consequence of such late liberalisation, the television market is still dominated by the public service broadcaster ORF, even though its market share is gradually but steadily declining. In 2019, ORF 2 had a market share of 19.8 per cent (2008: 25.1%), and the rather entertainment-orientated public service channel ORF 1 had a market share of 9.1 per cent (2008: 16.8%). Together, they reached 3.619 million Austrians on a daily basis (48.1%, compared to 51.8% in 2008) (ORF Medienforschung, 2020c). The largest German private television channels (RTL, VOX, Pro7) present in the television sector in Austria held market shares that varied from 3.4 to 4 per cent; the Austrian private channels also varied between 3.5 per cent (ATV), 3.4 per cent (PULS 4), and 3 per cent (ServusTV). The top three television channels accumulated a market share of only 33.1 per cent (2008: 49.2%) and represent two public broadcasters (two channels by Austrian ORF and German ZDF). The CR3 for the top three television companies on the national television market remains higher – ORF, RTL Group, and ProsiebenSat1Media hold a market share of 64.5 per cent (2008: 69.7%) (see Table 6).
The radio market too, has been dominated by public service channels. Besides the three nationwide available radio channels operated by ORF (Ö1, Ö3, and FM4), only Kronehit (owned by Kronenzeitung and Kurier) operated the nationwide private licence for a long time; Radio Austria started as the second nationwide private channel in October 2019. In 2019, Kronehit reached 10.7 per cent (2008: 5.9%) of the population and had a market share of 7 per cent (2008: 4%). Nevertheless, the Austrian radio landscape is mainly characterised by a variety of regional and local channels, as it was ten years ago (Grünangerl & Trappel, 2011; see also Indicator E2 – Media ownership concentration regional level; and Table 7). The public service mainstream programme Ö3 leads the market with a share of 33 per cent (same as in 2008); this reached 33.7 per cent of the population. The regional public service radio programmes, locally produced by nine regional studios (Ö2) occupied 35 per cent of the market (2008: 37.0%), followed by the cultural program Ö1 with 7 per cent (2008: 6%). The top three radio channels have an aggregated market share of 75 per cent (2008: 76%), and the top three radio companies have 86 per cent (2008: 81%).
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The Austrian online media market has been growing remarkably over the past ten years in terms of reach. Yet, it remains subservient to traditional media companies that are also active in other media sectors – mainly newspaper, magazine, and television markets (see Table 8). The online network of the public service broadcaster ORF reaches 3.9 million people per month, which represents 52.1 per cent of the Austrian population (2008: 1.9 million). Many media companies are extant only in the online outlets of their print products (e.g., Mediaprint) and associated media offers. Others have broadened their repertoire: Styria Media Group reaches many Austrians with the online outlets of the newspapers Kleine Zeitung and Die Presse as well as their regional offers (Regionalmedien Austria, meinbezirk.at) and the online market platform willhaben.at. Both heute.at (reach 2019: 2.7 million) and the medical information platform netdoktor.at (reach 2019: 861,000) belong to Heute Gruppe. MediengruppeÖsterreich not only offers the online newspaper platform oe24-Netzwerk (reach 2019: 2.6 million) but also the weather info website wetter.at. What is particularly remarkable is how the circulation of the online pioneer derstandard.at reached 2.5 million Austrians per month, with a quality information policy.
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