Austria is a small country of some 8.8 million inhabitants, located in the centre of Europe and part of the German language area, with some small linguistic minorities (mainly Hungarian, Slovenian and Croatian) in the south and east of the country. Austria borders with Czechia, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Liechtenstein, Slovakia, Slovenia, Switzerland and Liechtenstein.. With the latter three countries Austria also shares the language (German), thus some media compete in a larger language market. Austria’s only metropolis is Vienna, with some 2 million people living in and around the capital.
Politically, Austria is considered a mature liberal democracy.
Freedom House Global Freedom: Status “free” (Score: 93 out of 100 in 2020; down from 95 in 2017) One point has been deducted in the category of Freedom of Expression and Belief, justified by repeated verbal assaults of journalists by politicians, as well as by a high level of media concentration. (Freedom House, 2020)
V-Dem (Varieties of Democracy; Annual Democracy Report 2019):
- Liberal Democracy Index 2018: Austria ranges in the Top 10-20% bracket (rank 32 of all countries), considerably down since 2008
- Freedom of Expression Index 2018: Austria ranks 38 of all countries, the score has decreased over the past 10 years at a statistically significant level (V-Dem, 2019)
Since restauration of political independence after World War II in 1955, two parties have dominated parliament and government, the social democrats (SPÖ) and the conservative people’s party (ÖVP). In the first two decades of the new century, smaller parties increased their political relevance, in particular the far right freedom party (FPÖ; once under the leadership of the late Jörg Haider) and the environmentalist Green party. In 2017, following general elections, a coalition government was formed by ÖVP and FPÖ, which broke apart less than two years later, subsequent to the publication of a sting recorded video showing the FPÖ party leader engaged in a private corruption talk in a luxury resort at Ibiza. Snap elections later in the year 2019 reconfirmed the leadership by ÖVP which established another coalition government, this time partnering with the Green party. After a few weeks in office, COVID-19 threatened to hit Austria in March 2020, bordering heavily affected Italy.
The Austrian media landscape is characterized by two dominating groups: the public service broadcaster ORF on the one hand, being the uncontested market leader in the electronic media (television, radio and online), and the largest newspaper Kronenzeitung, reaching 27 per cent of the Austrian population (2019; down from 40,4 per cent in 2009) on the other. Since fall 2016, the online edition Krone.at of this boulevard-style paid newspaper ranks second in the Austrian online ranking. In addition, the wife of publisher and editor-in-chief of the Kronenzeitung is running the daily free-sheet Heute.
Austria’s private commercial television is relatively weak. The first private channel started as late as 2003 (ATV). Subsequent to a lost lawsuit at the European Court of Human Rights, Austria released legislation to allow for private commercial broadcasting in the year 2001 only.
Outside the capital Vienna, media ownership concentration has wiped out competition almost entirely in the daily newspaper business. While two provinces do not have any regional newspaper in addition to the regional edition of Kronenzeitung, just one publisher each dominates the remaining provinces (see indicators E1 and E2 for details).
There is little counter-balance to incumbent media companies by civil society initiatives. Third-sector media exist both in analogue (television, radio, press) and internet-based digital formats (blogs, social media), but their influence on public deliberation is limited.
According to the Media Pluralism Monitor by the Centre for Media Pluralism and Media Freedom at the European University Institute in Florence, the risks to media pluralism in Austria were considered high for two indicators, medium for nine indicators and low for the other 20 indicators in 2017 (Seethaler et al., 2017, p. 3)
Leading news media sample 2020
Our media sample for MDM 2020 consists of seven leading news media representing different types and different ownership: Editors-in-chief and leading journalists have been interviewed from one national quality daily newspaper (Der Standard), one regional daily newspaper (Salzburger Nachrichten), one political news magazine (Falter), and one popular news portal (Krone.at). Moreover, public television and public radio are part of our sample. Again, editors in chief and journalists have been interviewed (ORF 2, Ö1). Finally, one private commercial television broadcaster (Puls 4) and one daily free sheet (Heute) were part of our sample, but interviews were not possible. In addition, the chairman of the journalists’ union was interviewed.
COVID-19 pandemic
From mid March to mid May 2020, the then new Government imposed severe restrictions on liberal freedoms, such as closed borders to neighbouring countries, a ban on all public gatherings and events, curfew and shutdown of all shops except food supply, pharmacies and a few others. During this shutdown, linear television (both public and private-commercial) increased their audience, daily newspapers (both on paper and online) their readership and radio its listeners. Nonetheless, because of the economic restrictions, advertising slumped, causing revenue losses in advertising-based media. Most affected were daily free-sheets, as well as fully advertising based private-commercial television and radio channels.
In order to prevent media companies from collapsing, the Government increased substantially its media subsidies, along with unprecedented financial support for various sectors of the Austrian economy. The Government increased the regular press subsidy for newspaper distribution by the factor 1.5. In addition, subsidies based on the numbers of printed newspaper copies were allocated. This way, the highest-circulation newspapers (all of them yellow press) received the largest share, smaller quality-oriented papers received less. Furthermore, private-commercial TV stations received some € 15 million in addition to the previously foreseen € 20 million subsidies. In total, the Government allocated € 32 million to support the media during the Corona-crisis.
Dimensions and indicators
The 2019 research on the three dimensions for this Media for Democracy Monitor shows some progress of the Austrian media compared to 2009. At that time, the aftermath of the economic crisis had affected the media and their economic performance. The following period of high-density digitalisation of all journalistic and editorial processes has transformed the media internally, and exposed them to giant competitors such as digital platforms, in the form of search engines (Google) and interactive personalized services like Facebook and YouTube.
Surprisingly, this potentially devastating transformation has not caused much deterioration to the performance of the Austrian media. Apparently, the fierce economic battle for advertising money has been compensated by lowering cost and unlocking alternative revenues. Austria’s media moved forward towards more ownership concentration, but also towards more investigative reporting and even more gender balance among journalists. Nonetheless, this report again draws a mixed picture of the democratic implications of the Austrian media system. The grading has modestly improved compared to 2010. One reason is the distinct progress by the ORF, with its ethics council, journalists’ statute and reporting system.
Freedom of information is formally secured by law in Austria. News are available at moderate cost, leading news media have effective measures in place to defend themselves against internal and external influence, and journalists are well protected against harassment, offline and online. The gender gap still exists in the form of glass-ceilings. However, equal pay and almost balanced numbers of journalists of each sex constitute a major progress. The absence of an information freedom act sets Austria back against more democratic countries.
Equality and interest mediation are overshadowed by the ongoing and high-level media ownership concentration. However, below the group of dominating media conglomerates, a vibrant and active alternative media scene has grown, interestingly not primarily online, but rather as community media, radio and television. Actually, legacy media successfully captured the online media field, thereby increasing ownership concentration even further. Nonetheless, internal pluralism is alive and actively defended by concerned journalists. The public broadcaster ORF is an important cornerstone is this respect.
The control function and investigative reporting by the media is highly valued by Austrian journalists. The high professional ethos of Austrian journalists concerning independence from and control of power holders is, however, contradictory to the historically developed close relationship between media and economic or political power-holders. Nonetheless, journalists are committed to investigative reporting, and recent contemporary history shows that they are quite successful.
Overall, Austria’s leading news media managed to keep their standards during this turbulent decade of unleashed digitalization. Measured by our indicators, Austria’s news media serve democracy fairly well.
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