1957: The Start of Television Broadcasts

A television test programme began in Austria in 1955. Using provisional broadcasters in Vienna, Graz, Linz and Salzburg, television programmes were broadcast three times a week for about 30 minutes each as of August 1, 1955. Since hardly anyone owned a television set at that time, shows were broadcast between 5 and 6pm so that those who were interested were able to follow shows in the windows of radio shops on their way home from work. The production conditions were difficult because the new medium was expensive; a large portion of the transmitters had not yet been built and there was a lack of space. The Austrian Broadcasting Corporation (ORF) broadcast a twelve-minute concert recording of the Vienna Philharmonic from the Belvedere as its first broadcast.

The shows were introduced by Franziska Kalmar, Austria’s first TV-moderator. The inauguration of Vienna’s restored Imperial Court Theatre (Burgtheater) was broadcast in October and in November, the opening of the Vienna State Opera. “Zeit im Bild” was broadcast irregularly from December 1955 and since the early 1960s, the popular news programme has had its fixed slot at 7:30pm.

Regular television broadcasting began with one channel (FS 1) on January 1, 1957, at first shown six days a week and then, starting in 1959, every day of the week. In December 1957, the Österreichische Rundfunk GmbH was established, which from 1958 until 1993 was the only one authorised to broadcast radio and television programmes. The new mass media boomed and increasingly became a competitor for the cinemas. Despite high initial costs – a television set cost at least 6,000 Schillings, four times the average monthly salary – there were already 100,000 television sets in Austria by the end of 1959. That year also saw the advent of the television advertisement. The second TV channel (FS 2) came along in 1961, which was broadcast daily starting in 1969. The same year, colour television was also introduced. The abbreviation “ORF” (Austrian Broadcasting Corporation) has been in use since the 1967 broadcasting reform; as a result of the reform, the ORF has been a public-sector institution with a broadcasting mandate since 1974.