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Media owners in Austria are obliged to offer or deliver printed matter to certain public libraries, including the Austrian National Library (ÖNB). In 2000 this obligation was extended to include "other forms of media, except phonograms and moving picture carriers" - in other words, essentially DVDs containing text (see IRIS 1999-7: 13 and IRIS 2000-9: 14). At the beginning of March 2009, an amendment to the Mediengesetz (Media Act) came into force, extending the obligation to offer and deliver to include periodical electronic media that are accessible (websites) or distributed at least four times...

On 9 March 2009, the Bundeskommunikationssenat (Federal Communications Senate - BKS) decided that the refusal by Österreichische Rundfunk (Austrian broadcasting corporation - ORF) to sell advertising time to the operator of an online gaming platform was justified. The plaintiff operates an online gaming platform under betting and gambling licences issued in Gibraltar. It had asked ORF to broadcast an advertising spot, which referred to its poker game. The spot contained the text: "You weak, boring, stupid idiot, if you can accept these insults, then you are damn well ready to play poker with us"....

In a decision issued at the end of 2008, the Bundeskommunikationssenat (Federal Communication Senate - BKS) stated that Österreichische Rundfunk (the Austrian public broadcasting corporation - ORF) had violated the rules on the labelling of TV advertising and the separation of programme and advertising content. The BKS ruling concerned ORF programmes broadcast on its ORF 2 channel and was based on the following findings. On 28 July 2008, ORF broadcast a programme announcement with the ORF 2 corporate design followed by an "advertising divider", also with the ORF 2 corporate design but without...

The Landtag (State parliament) in Vienna has unanimously adopted an amendment to the Wiener Jugendschutzgesetz (Vienna Youth Protection Act) concerning computer and video games, which entered into force on 1 December 2008 and includes an obligation for computer games to be properly labelled. Packaging must now display the standard PEGI (Pan-European Game Information) symbols which have been developed at European level by the Interactive Software Federation of Europe (ISFE). As well as an age rating, the symbols provide information about problematic content such as violence, sex and racism. Until...

At the end of November 2008, the Austrian Social Democratic Party (SPÖ) and the Austrian People's Party (ÖVP) agreed to form a coalition government. They also adopted a government programme for the five-year parliamentary term. The Government is hoping to achieve the following media policy objectives between now and 2013: 1. The KommAustria media authority will be strengthened further. Rather than acting monocratically as it has up to now, its decisions will be taken in future by a media committee, a public broadcasting committee and two telecommunications committees. Additional committees may...