As expected, Minister Raab appointed Radio Arabella boss Wolfgang Struber to head the media funding agency. The approach of the ÖVP in the selection process irritated not only Neos and Greens.
Media Minister Susanne Raab appointed a managing director for RTR on Friday. As expected, the new head of the media division of Rundfunk- und Telekom Regula- tion GmbH will be long-standing Radio Arabella Managing Director and co-founder of the Digital Radio Austria Association, Wolfgang Struber. As head of RTR, he will (following the recommendation of the advisory board, which is not binding) single-handedly decide on 20 million euros in funding for commercial private broadcasters, 5 million euros for non-commercial broadcasters and 13.5 million euros in television funds. In addition, there is the new digitization funding of 20 million. EUR annually (in 2022 it will be a one-off EUR 54 million), with which the digital transformation of media is supported.
Existence threatening. But that won’t be enough. The planned reform of the ORF law called the association of editors-in-chief into action on Friday: they warn that the new opportunities for the ORF in the online area are “threatening the very existence of digital print journalism”. In view of the dramatically deteriorating economic conditions for the media industry, “rapid reform of media funding and its expansion” is necessary. Smaller publishers, for example, have the problem that they cannot benefit from digital funding at all because they cannot afford 200,000 euro digitization projects. However, this is the minimum size in order to be able to apply for funding at all.
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