Author: Vojtěch Berger, HlidaciPes.org, Czech republic
That list was meant to take arguments away from critics of the public media. However, the ranking of the highest-paid employees, which the Austrian broadcaster ORF was required by law to publish for the first time in April, has provoked the opposite – more criticism, envy and even threats. All this just a few months before the elections, in which a party that wants to de facto nationalise the public media aspires to win. The case is worth following for other countries of the region too.
While in the Czech Republic, representatives of public and commercial media, the state and entrepreneurs are currently clarifying in working groups of the Ministry of Culture under which conditions an increase of licence fees will pass, Austria has already had a similar – and similarly complex – debate. In both countries, licence fees are the main source of revenue for public service media.
As of this year, all Austrian households, not just those with an allocated radio or TV set, will contribute to the operation of ORF. So the number of payers has increased, but at the same time the overall fee has been reduced on average. The revenue for ORF has remained roughly the same.
This in itself should have been a plus point for the image of the public service media – at a time when everything is getting more expensive, licence fees suddenly become cheaper (except, of course, for the ten percent or so of households that had paid nothing until then).
The opposition Freedom Party, which has long dominated the preference polls in Austria and is likely to win the autumn parliamentary elections, has made no secret of its intention to abolish licence fees. It refers to them as a ‘tax’ or ‘forced fee’.
Other modifications negotiated along with the the license fees system change, although they will „hurt“ ORF a bit, should also ultimately strengthen the position of the public media towards its critics. This was at least the plan…
One of the adopted changes was a significant reduction in the textual content on the news website Orf.at. It is one of Austria’s top sites in terms of traffic and was accused by the commercial media of not having to earn its own money to run the site, unlike them, but subsidising it with licence fees.
Similar objections have been heard from the commercial media sector in the Czech Republic against the public service media website iRozhlas. In the light of recent negotiations on increasing the licence fees the director general of the Czech Radio, René Zavoral admitted, he can imagine restricting the website too.
Another change was the obligation of greater transparency, enshrined in law. This includes the list of ORF employees and associates with the highest earnings – according to the law, those exceeding 170,000 euros per year.
This list had to be published by the broadcaster for the first time at the beginning of April this year. Around 60 names exceeded the “top earnings” threshold – a mix of top managers, heads of regional studios, presenters and foreign correspondents.
It is worth noting that CEO Roland Weißmann came third in the table of highest annual earnings. Robert Kratky, the morning presenter of the lifestyle and music radio station Ö3, came in first place. Narrowly missing out on the top ten was the acclaimed and award-winning TV political debate host Armin Wolf.
According to the experts interviewed, the published austrian earnings, for example, correspond to those in the public media in comparable Germany.
What is important is what the publication of the list has triggered. Originally, it was supposed to be an argument in favour of the public service media, which has had to face long-standing criticism not only in Austria, precisely because of the low transparency of expenditure and internal processes.
However, the list itself has provoked quite the opposite, with some people on the list even receiving threats. And the aforementioned Austrian Freedom Party has again turned the published salaries to the disadvantage of the public media, which, according to the party, needs to be “slimmed down”.
ORF itself and other media experts have spoken of an “abuse of transparency”. They point out that the published data has also shown other important things – for example, that young ORF employees take significantly less than the 60 highest earners, and above all that there is a huge gap between the remuneration of men and women even within the public service media. The latter are significantly more represented in the lower salary categories.
Despite the original intentions of the law’s authors, six months before the parliamentary elections, Austrian critics of the public media have been given more arguments to use against ORF. This at a time when the preferences are dominated by a party that has long seen the ORF as both its main enemy and a tool to reward the services of its loyalists.
This is shown by the more than five-year-old recordings of online conversations of the then head of the Freedom Party, H.C. Strache. In the chat forums seized from his phone during the investigation into the corruption scandal dubbed Ibiza-Gate, ORF appears frequently. The protocols also show that Strache wanted, for example, to get a lucrative TV job for his personal fitness trainer.
The current rhetoric of the Czech parliamentary opposition is not far removed from the Austrian attacks on the public media. Both the SPD and the ANO movement also agree with the Austrian Freedom Party that they will nationalise Czech Television and Czech Radio if they enter government.
For example, the blackened contracts of the Czech Television appear regularly in their criticism. Similarly, opponents of the current form of the public media, whether in or out of the parliament, occasionally refer to demands for the above-described disclosure of the salaries of public journalists and other employees.
However, recent experience in Austria shows that claims for greater transparency of public media, however generally justified, need to be assessed and pursued with caution.
