As Austria’s media minister, Susanne Raab, publicly confirmed on Friday afternoon, the ORF will in future be financed by a lower household fee instead of the GIS fee, as has been the case up to now. The ORF is said to have to save several hundred million euros over the next few years. According to media reports, the topic is not only a radical austerity course, but also a cessation of the sports channel ORF SPORT+, which is so extremely valuable for Austria’s tennis and sports world – a threatening, extremely drastic step that the Austrian Tennis Association urgently needs warns.
Ohneberg sees far-reaching consequences
“Public broadcasting also has a social responsibility, and sport is very important to that. If you were to simply delete it, you would not be able to fulfill this public mandate,” emphasizes ÖTV President Martin Ohneberg. “If you were to deprive sport of public attention, you would also be depriving it of its veins, its blood – because this would result in a loss of public appeal and with it sponsorship and financial resources. Which of course would have far-reaching consequences,” said the head of the second largest sports association in the country.
Fulfilling this public mandate is essential for sport in particular: “It lives from the public. The ORF in particular plays an important role here. If you were to take away important sources of income from sport by taking such a step, then you would be driving sport even more into the clutches of being dependent on politics,” warns Ohneberg and makes it clear: “Saving: yes – but not in sport! This is the basis for health and life. Of course, efficiency and economy are important, also for us in the ÖTV. However, this must not result in such important social tasks not being fulfilled.”
Schweda: “Setting up ORF SPORT+ would be fatal”
The ÖTV managing director for business, Thomas Schweda, also finds clear words for this threatening development: “For Austria’s tennis sport and also for Austria’s sport as a whole, a cessation of ORF SPORT+ would be fatal. Especially the events next to the top tournaments of the ATP and WTA tour in the country – such as the Austrian state championships, the ATP Challenger, the IMMOunited Bundesliga – would then no longer have an extensive platform on which to broadcast them. And of course that would have implications for sponsor funds, which would adjust to the fact that they no longer had that kind of visibility.”
There is also massive resistance to the threat of ORF SPORT+ being discontinued in the ORF Foundation Council and in the Austrian federal sports organization Sport Austria. Sport Austria President Hans Niessl already announced in a press release that “Austrian sport will fight this with all means possible.” An extraordinary executive committee meeting was called for next Thursday to discuss further steps. “ORF SPORT+ is of great importance for maintaining the diversity of Austrian sports culture,” Niessl clarified. The Austrian federal government “actively supported domestic sport during Corona, in the energy crisis and by increasing the special federal sports funding. If ORF SPORT+ were to be discontinued now or the low budget further reduced, it would be a huge step backwards that would destroy what has been achieved! That’s why there must be the most massive protests in sport here!”
