OÖ. Volksblatt: "It's about the diversity of opinion" (by Roland KORNTNER)

2023-05-02 19:30:31

May 3, 2023 edition

Linz – Dear readers
and readers!
When you saw the (almost) empty front page of VOLKSBLATTS today, several thoughts must have gone through your head. What happened there? Have there been technical problems? Has there been a strike?
Not at all. The practically empty page 1 is an agreed statement by the print media in the country, united in the Association of Austrian Newspapers (VÖZ), on today’s day of press freedom.
A statement protesting against the media package with the new ORF law and digital amendment, which was presented last week and has been examined. A law that, if passed, could threaten diversity of opinion in this country. Not today and not tomorrow, but in the foreseeable future. Because this law provides the ORF with a steep template to seize market power online as well. As pointed out in the VOLKSBLATT in the last few days, he can do almost anything in the future and will also be generously financed for it.
As a reminder: Even if the ORF itself likes to introduce the austerity package, the fact is that in future even more money than before will flow to the Küniglberg due to the household levy – according to the current status 710 million euros a year plus compensation costs (for the omission of the Input tax deduction entitlement as well as for ORF Sport+ and the RSO) plus revenue.
The restriction, according to which fewer reports may be published on orf.at in the future, is certainly accepted with pleasure. Especially when you know that the majority of traffic comes from the top stories.
For clarification: As a print medium that has embarked on the path of digitization, it is absolutely not about abolishing ORF for us. On the contrary: it needs a strong ORF in terms of democratic politics.
But it’s about a reasonable coexistence, in the best case even about a symbiosis. To clearly mark out which players are allowed to work which field. With the ORF, an actor that is well equipped financially due to public funding is increasingly pushing into the online print sector. This cannot be what the inventor intended. This calls for changes and a clear definition of what the ORF should or must actually do. And it also raises the question of whether the ORF could not be made (more) -free with so many fees flowing? Whether he shouldn’t concentrate on his important public service assignment and leave content such as US series or US films to the private sector.
Conclusion: Because of the general criticism from VÖZ and also VÖP, the association of Austrian private broadcasters, and also the trade union GPA, the government is required to revise this law.