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State Aid for Newspapers pp 133–148Cite as

Austria: Press Subsidies in Search of a New Design

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Part of the book series: Media Business and Innovation ((MEDIA))

Abstract

Media in Austria have to cope with two basic and obviously unchangeable conditions: (a) the limited size and shortage of resources of the national and regional domestic markets and (b) Germany as large neighbouring country with a highly developed range of media products belonging to the same language area. Austria itself is a small market with about eight million inhabitants and it is divided into even smaller regional markets (with only one exception—the Viennese region with two million inhabitants). And it is part of the German language area, which means that a great number of widely read special interest magazines and some weekly magazines are produced and published in Germany. The same goes for the television sector.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    These subsidies are covered by various regional Acts and, as regards weeklies, by a special Federal Government Act (Bundesgesetz über die Förderung staatsbürgerlicher Bildungsarbeit im Bereich der politischen Parteien und der Publizistik), commonly referred to as “subsidisation of periodicals and other printed matter” (Publizistikförderung).

  2. 2.

    Additionally, the newspaper lobby called for an exemption of local business taxes, payroll tax, advertising tax as well as reductions in postal delivery and rail transport fees.

  3. 3.

    Journalistic titles fell from 27 units in 1961 to 20 units in 1972 and are referred to as full journalistic units, indicating institutionally independent editing as well as journalistic independence.

  4. 4.

    Reasons for newspapers in crisis were seen in the structural difficulties of Austrian media companies, low capital equipment, dependence on foreign countries and overall macroeconomic situation at the end of the 1960s, small internal market and deficits of qualifications of media personnel (see Fabris 1976).

  5. 5.

    Additionally, periodicals were already subsidised since 1972, when a federal government bill was passed in the National Parliament.

  6. 6.

    The new government bill was initiated by a controversial parliamentary debate on various models of promoting press diversity and curbing processes of concentration in Austria. Explicitly, the press subsidies model of Sweden supported the foil of argumentation for the Austrian considerations. It can only be suspected whether personal political contacts between the two countries had any influence on setting up the bill in its present form.

  7. 7.

    A new provision of the Press Subsidies Act in 1992 lifted this yearly volume of advertising pages to 22 %. See Republik Österreich, Bundesgesetz, mit dem das Presseförderung 1985 geändert wird, 31/7/1992.

  8. 8.

    For the following, see Holtz-Bacha (1994), and Schmolke (1995).

  9. 9.

    Sweden had already adopted similar subsidies in the mid-70s.

  10. 10.

    Grants for the establishment of new printing plants provided by the Ministry of Social Welfare were sharply criticised by the Austrian Audit Office (Rechnungshof) as both an incentive to distort competition by crowding out small private print media businesses and needlessly subsidising excess capacities.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Advanced Studies and Research in ICTs and Society, University of Salzburg, Salzburg, Austria

    Paul Murschetz

  2. Institut for Media and Communications, Universität Klagenfurt, Klagenfurt, Austria

    Matthias Karmasin

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  1. Paul Murschetz
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Correspondence to Paul Murschetz .

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  1. University of Salzburg ICT&S Center, Salzburg, Austria

    Paul Murschetz

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Murschetz, P., Karmasin, M. (2013). Austria: Press Subsidies in Search of a New Design. In: Murschetz, P. (eds) State Aid for Newspapers. Media Business and Innovation. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-35691-9_9

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