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Austria’s new People’s Party/Freedom Party coalition has unveiled its government programme for the legislative period until 2022, which contains a number of elements related to media policy. The programme describes the media landscape as being in a period of radical change, digitisation as progressing rapidly and the resulting upheavals as so serious that media policy needs to be completely overhauled. In particular, it says that politicians must ensure that the media provide specifically Austrian content. The government programme lists five objectives in this regard: the further development of...

On 18 December 2017, the Telekom-Control-Kommission (Telecom Control Commission - TKK), Austria’s regulatory body for the telecommunications market, decided that the ‘Free Stream’ telecommunications service provided by A1 does not violate net neutrality. ‘Free Stream’ is a so-called zero-rating service, which means that data is streamed to customers for specific services free of charge. Users can stream videos and music from specific partners (for example, YouTube or Spotify) without the data coming out of the allowance stipulated under their contract. After the service was notified to the TKK,...

In a decision of 12 October 2017, the Austrian Verfassungsgerichtshof (Constitutional Court) ruled that the legislator was entitled to exempt Internet advertisers from paying the advertising tax levied on print media and radio ads (case no. E 2025/2016-16). The decision was taken in response to a total of 23 complaints from newspaper and magazine publishers and radio stations, who had claimed that the advertising tax was discriminatory and that the 2000 Advertising Tax Act was unconstitutional. According to Article 1(1) and (2) of the Act, the advertising tax applies to advertising services provided...

In a case against Austria, the European Court of Human Rights (“ECtHR”) decided that a satirical report aired during a comedy show on television that allegedly tarnished the reputation of a high-ranking and controversial politician had not violated the politician’s right to private life, as guaranteed by Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). The ECtHR is of the opinion that the Austrian courts struck a fair balance between the competing interests in the case, in finding that the broadcaster’s right to freedom of expression under Article 10 ECHR had outweighed the politician’s...

The Austrian media regulator, KommAustria, has decided that the takeover of the ATV and ATV2 television channels by operator ProSiebenSat.1Puls4 GmbH does not contravene the relevant provisions of Austrian broadcasting and media concentration law and has therefore given the takeover the green light. KommAustria had to check, firstly, whether the operator would still be able to broadcast in accordance with broadcasting law and, secondly, whether the new company would breach media concentration law. When examining whether the takeover conformed with broadcasting law, the regulator had to ensure first...