Almost an hour had already passed when Constitutional Judge Michael Holoubek addressed the “elephant in the room”: the political circles of friends. Officially they don’t even exist – these associations of party members and party-affiliated representatives on the ORF Board of Trustees, the central control and supervisory body of the public broadcaster. Political circles of friends are not included in the ORF law – even though it stipulates the broadcaster’s freedom of instruction, which would be noticeably restricted by political agreements between its supervisory bodies.
ORF law in Austria: Political influence on public broadcasting – media
