Austrian news media provide for a large variety of different news formats, from headline news online to long-reads in newspapers and background features on radio and television. All different categories are covered, including local, national, and international news as well as politics, economy, current affairs, culture, and sport sections.
Austria’s news media provide for a large variety of news formats. This variety has increased over the last decade since 2009, notably online and in the private broadcasting sector. In particular, boulevard-style formats have increased, with online television channels being launched by daily newspapers Kurier (Schau TV) and Österreich (oe24.tv). Furthermore, the two private television channels ATV and PULS 4(owned by the same company) have also extended their news programmes. Although this news content is popular in style, it has also added to format variations.
These programmes come in addition to quality boulevard newspapers and ORF’s main television news formats, which are broadcast on ORF 2. Information formats on ORF 1 are usually shorter. ORF 2, meanwhile, provides seven different news formats throughout the day, four of them exceeding a time slot of 15 minutes. A regional news format is broadcast on ORF 2 before the main evening news, delivered by the regional ORF studios. In addition, ORF 1 delivers shorter news formats five times a day, from “flash news” to “late night news”. Apart from these news formats, there are also special interest magazines on political and economic topics (Thema, Report), political discussion formats (Im Zentrum, Runder Tisch), international magazines (Welt Journal), as well as a weekly discussion format on current affairs, inviting journalists from other media organisations to be co-interviewers (Pressestunde, Hohes Haus).
Private television channels have shorter and more sensationalist forms of news presentation. The private channel ATV delivers its daily news format (ATV Aktuell) three times a day, in addition to news magazines (ATV Die Reportage) with lower frequency. PULS 4 produces two news formats, Café Puls at breakfast time and Puls 24 News in the evening, followed by an infotainment magazine.
On most radio programmes, short news flashes every full hour are common. ORF’s programme Ö1 offers longer news formats: two morning news broadcasts – including one in English and French – a one-hour news broadcast at lunch time (Mittagsjournal), and four news formats in the evening. In addition, radio magazines are quite common. All public service radio channels and many local private channels provide podcasts or are also available as web radio.
Albeit this rich variety of news, there is still no Austrian 24-hour–news television or radio channel, even though some foreign news channels (ntv, n24, CNN) are available via cable or satellite. Furthermore, there is no Internet-only news channel online, as all sizeable Austrian news websites are subsidiaries of mass media corporations.
