The production company Tower10 KidsTV is accused of charging excessive prices for ORF children’s programs. For example, the company’s internal draft calculations from 2014 to 2017 show 1.4 million euros that cannot be allocated to either costs or planned revenues. The Tower10 KidsTV managing director and the ORF emphasized that they had not found any irregularities.
“The allegations are completely unfounded,” said current Tower10 KidsTV CEO Bernhard Trenz. Although he was not managing director of Thomas Brezina’s company from 2014 to 2017, he checked all official balance sheets and cash flows. They are “transparent, correct and comprehensible”.
“Mind Games of an Earlier Phase”
He can only guess what “Schmalz” is about, after all, he doesn’t have the internal documents from back then. According to Trenz, who also spoke to the former managing director on this matter, it should be “mind games” at an early stage. Thomas Brezina himself is the “creative head of the company” and has “no contact whatsoever” with the figures.
The ORF also states in a statement that the production calculations have been checked conscientiously and several times. “The positions of the individual format calculations, the general costs as well as the charged administrative expenses and the profit were understandable”. They have no knowledge of the file with the “Schmalz” column.
“Grease Brezina’s company with lard?”
“Kurier” research supports the statements of the production company and the ORF. According to the daily newspaper, the final program costs for the ORF are below the sum before the “Schmalz” surcharge.
The FPÖ, meanwhile, demanded full transparency from the ORF with external auditors as quickly as possible. “Did you want to grease up Brezina’s company with this ‘lard’, as the amounts were named in the documents, or were there kick-back payments, possibly to those responsible for the ORF? All these suspicions must be investigated immediately, that is the first duty towards the fee payers,” said FPÖ media spokesman Christian Hafenecker in a broadcast.
Source: Nachrichten
