Austria – 50th Anniversary of Austrian Broadcasting 1974 Silver 50 Schilling 34mm (19.97 grams) 0.640 Silver (0.4115 oz. ASW) Reference: KM# 2922 1924-1974 50 JAHRE OSTERREICHISCHER RUNDFUNK, Broadcasting symbol. · REPUBLIK · 50 SCHILLING ÖSTERREICH, Value within circle of shields. Edge Lettering: FUENFZIG SCHILLING
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Österreichischer Rundfunk (English: Austrian Broadcasting Corporation, ORF) is the Austrian national public service broadcaster.
Funded from a combination of television licence fee revenue and limited on-air advertising, ORF is the dominant player in the Austrian broadcast media. Austria was the last country in continental Europe after Albania to allow nationwide private television broadcasting.
The first unregulated test transmissions in Austria were made beginning 1 April 1923 by Radio Hekaphon, run by the radio pioneer and enthusiast Oskar Czeija (1887-1958), who applied for a radio license in 1921; first in his telephone factory in the Brigittenau district of Vienna, later in the nearby TGM technical college. September 2, it aired a first broadcast address by Austrian President Michael Hainisch. One year later, a powerful transmitter, designed by the German Telefunken company, was installed on the roof of the former War Ministry building on Ringstraße in central Vienna.
Radio Verkehrs AG
It was, however, the public Radio-Verkehrs-Aktiengesellschaft (“Radio Communication Company Ltd”, RAVAG), a joint-venture of the Austrian Federal Government, the City of Vienna and several bank companies, which, in February 1924, was awarded the concession to begin broadcasting, with Czeja as its director-general. Regular transmissions began on 1 October 1924 from provisional studios inside the War Ministry building that were to become known as Radio Wien (Welle 530). By the end of October 1924 it already had 30,000 listeners, and by January 1925 100,000. Relay transmitters, established across the country by 1934, ensured that all Austrians could listen to Radio Wien at a monthly fee of two schillings.
Radio programmes aimed at an educated audience, featuring classical music, literature and lectures. First live radio broadcasts aired in 1925, transmitted from the Vienna State Opera and the Salzburg Festival. On the other hand, news broadcasts only played a minor part out of deference to the Austrian press and the “neutralism” policy of the federal government (the July Revolt of 1927 was not even mentioned). Nevertheless, also regular sportscasts began 1928 and in 1930 the Austrian legislative election was comprehensively covered. At that time, RAVAG registered about 500,000 listeners, having become a mass medium.
In the course of the abolition of the First Austrian Republic and the implementation of the Austrofascist Ständestaat by Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuß in 1934, the RAVAG studios were embattled during the Austrian Civil War in February, as well as by the protagonists of the Nazi July Putsch, when several insurgents entered the studio and had Dollfuß‘s resignation announced (he actually was killed in his occupied Chancellery office). Dollfuß‘s successor Kurt Schuschnigg had the demolished broadcasting centre replaced by the new Radiokulturhaus building (present-day Funkhaus Wien) near the Theresianum academy in Vienna-Wieden, designed by Clemens Holzmeister and erected from 1935 to 1939. The Austrian government widely used RAVAG broadcasts for propaganda activities, defying massive cross-border Nazi propaganda broadcasts aired from German transmitters in the Munich region, but also promoted the live transmission of mass celebrations.
Reichssender Wien
With the Austrian Anschluss to Nazi Germany and the invasion of Wehrmacht troops in 1938, RAVAG was dissolved and replaced by Reichssender Wien subordinate to the national Reichs-Rundfunk-Gesellschaft network (Großdeutscher Rundfunk from 1939) in Berlin, were also the programmes were produced. One of the last RAVAG transmissions was Schuschnigg‘s farewell address on March 11 (“God save Austria”). Only hours later, live broadcasts featured the cheering devotees of his Nazi successor Arthur Seyss-Inquart, the triumphant entry of Adolf Hitler in Linz the next day, and his speech on Vienna Heldenplatz. In 1939, the former RAVAG transmission facilities were taken over by the German Reichspost.
In World War II, listening to Feindsender (“enemy-radio-stations”) became a capital offence, however, especially the German language programmes of the BBC were a widely used information source. Reichssender Wien transmissions were important for strategic bombing alerts. The Funkhaus broadcasting centre itself was damaged by Allied bombs in January and February 1945, followed by the Red Army Vienna Offensive. Reichssender Wien last aired 6 April, before retiring SS troops blew up the Bisamberg transmitter.
Radio Wien
Following the Wehrmacht defeat, independent Austrian RAVAG radio broadcasting resumed in Allied-occupied Austria 24 April 1945, when it announced the formation of a provisional Austrian state government led by Karl Renner. A new Radio Wien station was founded, broadcasting from Funkhaus Wien by a provisional transmitter on the rooftop, once again under Oskar Czeija, who nevertheless was ousted shortly afterwards on pressure by the Soviet military administration. As the Funkhaus was located in the Soviet occupation sector of Vienna, the Western Allies established own radio stations like British Alpenland network or US Radio Rot-Weiß-Rot, as well as the English-speaking “Blue Danube” armed forces network (BDN) and the British Forces Network (BND), which became quite popular with younger Austrian listeners. The RAVAG transmissions limited to the East Austrian Soviet occupation zone, and in the beginning Cold War era were increasingly considered Communist propaganda broadcasting.
A number of other radio stations began broadcasting in the different occupation zones and radio become a popular medium among Austrians: in 1952 there were 1.5 million radio sets in Austrian homes. The Western Allies could operate their programmes nationwide from Vienna, with a significantly higher popularity rating than the outdated RAVAG transmissions. In 1955, the various regional stations were brought together as the Österreichisches Rundspruchwesen (“Austrian Broadcasting Entity”) which later, in 1958, became the Österreichischer Rundfunk GmbH, forerunner of today’s ORF.
Austria, officially the Republic of Austria (German: Republik Österreich), is a federal republic and a landlocked country of over 8.5 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Hungary and Slovakia to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the west. The territory of Austria covers 83,879 square kilometres (32,386 sq mi). Austria’s terrain is highly mountainous, lying within the Alps; only 32% of the country is below 500 metres (1,640 ft), and its highest point is 3,798 metres (12,461 ft). The majority of the population speak local Bavarian dialects of German as their native language, and Austrian German in its standard form is the country’s official language. Other local official languages are Hungarian, Burgenland Croatian, and Slovene.
The origins of modern-day Austria date back to the time of the Habsburg dynasty when the vast majority of the country was a part of the Holy Roman Empire. From the time of the Reformation, many Northern German princes, resenting the authority of the Emperor, used Protestantism as a flag of rebellion. The Thirty Years War, the influence of the Kingdom of Sweden and Kingdom of France, the rise of the Kingdom of Prussia, and the Napoleonic invasions all weakened the power of the Emperor in the North of Germany, but in the South, and in non-German areas of the Empire, the Emperor and Catholicism maintained control. During the 17th and 18th centuries, Austria was able to retain its position as one of the great powers of Europe and, in response to the coronation of Napoleon as the Emperor of the French, the Austrian Empire was officially proclaimed in 1804. Following Napoleon’s defeat, Prussia emerged as Austria’s chief competitor for rule of a larger Germany. Austria’s defeat by Prussia at the Battle of Königgrätz, during the Austro-Prussian War of 1866 cleared the way for Prussia to assert control over the rest of Germany. In 1867, the empire was reformed into Austria-Hungary. After the defeat of France in the 1870 Franco-Prussian War, Austria was left out of the formation of a new German Empire, although in the following decades its politics, and its foreign policy, increasingly converged with those of the Prussian-led Empire. During the 1914 July Crisis that followed the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, Germany guided Austria in issuing the ultimatum to Serbia that led to the declaration of World War I.
After the collapse of the Habsburg (Austro-Hungarian) Empire in 1918 at the end of World War I, Austria adopted and used the name the Republic of German-Austria (Deutschösterreich, later Österreich) in an attempt for union with Germany, but was forbidden due to the Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye (1919). The First Austrian Republic was established in 1919. In the 1938 Anschluss, Austria was occupied and annexed by Nazi Germany.[14] This lasted until the end of World War II in 1945, after which Germany was occupied by the Allies and Austria’s former democratic constitution was restored. In 1955, the Austrian State Treaty re-established Austria as a sovereign state, ending the occupation. In the same year, the Austrian Parliament created the Declaration of Neutrality which declared that the Second Austrian Republic would become permanently neutral.
Today, Austria is a parliamentary representative democracy comprising nine federal states. The capital and largest city, with a population exceeding 1.7 million, is Vienna. Austria is one of the richest countries in the world, with a nominal per capita GDP of $52,216 (2014 est.). The country has developed a high standard of living and in 2014 was ranked 21st in the world for its Human Development Index. Austria has been a member of the United Nations since 1955, joined the European Union in 1995, and is a founder of the OECD. Austria also signed the Schengen Agreement in 1995, and adopted the euro in 1999.
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