The vote is over, the battle is over. In the end, it was more of a carefully calculated deal with which the previous Vice Finance Director and Chief Producer Roland Weißmann was named the new General Director of ORF on Tuesday. For weeks, an election that was not one had heated emotions and filled the comment pages of the Austrian media. Although the result was in principle certain, it had been debated until the very end whether the ÖVP would really be able to push through its candidate for the management of public service broadcasting without any problems – or whether it would actually want to push it shamelessly. Whether this would promote the progressive “orbánisierung” of the Austrian political and media landscape. And whether surprises could still be expected after all.
Well there weren’t any; Already at the weekend it became clear that Weissmann, one of a total of 14 applicants for the post of General Director and one of three candidates who could figure out a chance of success, would be elected with a solid majority. In the end, he received 24 of 35 votes, and he will take up office on January 1, 2022.
Because the Greens, government partner of ÖVP and Chancellor Sebastian Kurz, had promised to vote for the candidate, who was considered the favorite of the Kurz troop. In any case, the ÖVP had a majority in the foundation council, which is made up of government, parties, states and partially independent organizations, so Weissmann would have been elected in all probability anyway. Which is why the small government partner – despite the expected shitstorm from the cultural scene, opposition and disappointed Green voters – argued that one could vote for the man right away. But also set conditions in order to subsequently be able to help shape the station and minimize expected interventions by the ÖVP. The shitstorm followed promptly. Prominent writers such as Robert Menasse, Elfriede Jelinek and Monika Helfer accused the Greens of “submission”.
In Austria, the free choice of the ORF general director is a political act per se
The Greens are said to have been assured of two directorships, those for finance and programs, which they did not want to confirm before the meeting, as did other details of the negotiations with applicants and government partners. Sigrid Pilz, patient advocate for the City of Vienna and sent to the Board of Trustees by the Greens, said the SZ, with the votes for Weißmann, for whom a clear majority had already existed, was now at least given the opportunity to make ORF more diverse, more transparent and more independent make. In particular, “strong, non-party directors should be appointed in central areas” and “more women should finally be given leadership positions”.
The free choice of a general director of the powerful public broadcasting company in Austria is a political act per se. The ORF law explicitly mentions an “independent” media company that is “defined as a foundation under public law”, but was independent it’s never far. The director is appointed by a simple majority and in an open vote by show of hands by the politically occupied board of trustees; In 2001, the coalition of ÖVP and FPÖ changed the law, which previously required a secret election and a larger majority – and thus increased the chance for surprises. The then parliamentary group leader of the ÖVP, Andreas Khol, had the matter of course, with which the politics in Austria took over the ORF, under black and blue to the point with his remark that he wanted the “red Gfrieser”, that is annoying, annoying people, not see more on ORF. Even today, the governors have a say in appointing the directors of the state studios. After all, the Salzburg governor Wilfried Haslauer (ÖVP) questioned this in a small act of rebellion against the federal party on Tuesday.
The previous incumbent, Alexander Wrabetz, came into office 15 years ago on a ticket from the SPÖ and was re-elected twice through clever tactics. But with the electoral successes of the Kurz ÖVP, the balance of power in the Foundation Council finally shifted in favor of the conservatives. Which is why Wrabetz, who would have liked to go on and presented himself as an ÖVP-critical applicant despite maximum political adaptability, said in a round of introductions on the private broadcaster Puls24 that the situation at this election was “new”: a group could not only be based on a “certain arithmetic” appoint the director alone for the first time, but this group, meaning the ÖVP circle of friends on the foundation council, did not even “make internal democratic decisions”. Rather, an “external” said who was to be appointed: the media officer in the Federal Chancellery. “His name is Fleischmann. Not Weissmann,” said the incumbent General Director patzig.
Indeed, none of this is a secret, even if Weissmann himself emphasizes that he has “no party membership”. But appearances in front of the ÖVP Circle of Friends in the presence of the turquoise Chancellor’s Representative for the Media, Gerald Fleischmann, which have also been circulated as screenshots in the past few days, indicate a political closeness, such as Lisa Totzauer, the third candidate who had calculated good chances , so was not assumed – even if she was treated as a bourgeois applicant of the “old ÖVP”. The spokesman for the turquoise circle of friends, Thomas Zach, praised Weissmann as an “innovative media manager” and team player after the election.
The Kurz government is known for trying to influence reporting
All candidates presented their concepts one after the other on Tuesday, it was about digitization, cooperation with private partners, trimediality, the new newsroom, but even before the start of the meeting at 10 a.m. all observers had agreed: the race was over. Nobody had expected that the Kurz government, which relies on precise message control and is known for exerting undisguised influence on reporting either with direct criticism or with high advertising budgets, would anyway. Their coalition partner is different: Dieter Bornemann, editorial spokesman for the ORF and clear critic of a system in which the ORF has to fight for its independence every day, said the SZ that the Greens had repeatedly proven in their government work that they were “not resistant”.
But their voting behavior does not have to harm them, says Peter Filzmaier. The political scientist, who appears regularly on ORF and emphasizes that he therefore does not want to say anything about the election of the general director, prefers to analyze the party’s “fundamental strategy” of “promoting their own interests in deals with the Turks”. Slight losses are to be expected in the next elections, but the SPÖ, which has also made deals with the ÖVP for decades, is politically too weak as a competitor and can now hardly pose as the “avenger of the disinherited”.
So everything stays the same for the time being. Apart from frustrated editors at ORF and media experts, there is less discussion about the future viability of Austrian broadcasting than the role of politics in ORF. The pro-government courier had already placed this message about Roland Weißmann on his homepage on Monday: “Black belt and financial competence: This is the new ORF boss”. The vote had not yet taken place.