Image: colourbox.de
In the previous year, the government’s expenditure on advertisements in Austria’s daily newspapers and their online portals was non-transparent, without a comprehensible line and very boulevard-oriented. This is the result of a new study by Medienhaus Wien. According to managing director Andy Kaltenbrunner, expenses fell compared to 2021, but a corona vaccination campaign from federal funds was not taken into account.
In 2022, the federal government spent around 29 million euros on media cooperation, in 2021 it was 45.4 million. 13.6 million went to daily newspapers for advertisements (2021: 28.2 million). RTR’s media transparency database does not show 75 million euros as part of the government budget, which were transferred to the municipalities on behalf of the government from mid-March 2022 for a municipal corona vaccination campaign. “We don’t know anything more about the whereabouts of these funds,” says Kaltenbrunner.
The tabloids “Kronen Zeitung”, “Heute” and “Österreich”https://www.nachrichten.at/”oe24” received the majority and together accounted for 58 percent of the expenditure. Around 3.1 million went to the “Kronen Zeitung”, approx. 2.5 million to “Österreich”https://www.nachrichten.at/”oe24” and 2.4 million to “Heute”. There were hardly any advertisements in the “Oberösterreichische Nachrichten” (0.4 million) and the “Salzburger Nachrichten” (0.3 million).
If you compare the number of readers of the daily newspapers with the total expenditure of the federal government, it shows that “Austria”https://www.nachrichten.at/”oe24” again received the most advertising money per reader. The government paid 4.51 euros for reader contact in 2022. On average, it was 2.08 euros per reader. Above that are “Today” (3.37 euros), at the bottom end the OÖN (1.24 euros) and “Der Standard” (1.17 euros).
“No strategy discernible”
All in all, according to Kaltenbrunner, “no coordinated communication strategy of the government can be identified, but the individual interests and media relations of the departments and their ministers can be assumed.” In the absence of transparent communication reports, government campaigns and the dispersal plans and their rationale remain unknown.
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: Nachrichten
I am an author and journalist who has worked in the entertainment industry for over a decade. I currently work as a news editor at a major news website, and my focus is on covering the latest trends in entertainment. I also write occasional pieces for other outlets, and have authored two books about the entertainment industry.
