Austrians on course for expansion with TV plans
Private TV producers associated with Vienna's Kronen Zeitung are testing the waters in Switzerland
Private TV makers around the Viennese Kronen Zeitung are putting out feelers in SwitzerlandWhile there is a hangover in Switzerland with regard to national private TV stations, big plans are being made in Austria: A new broadcaster wants to cover the entire German-speaking region. The fathers of the project are the brothers Hanno and Erwin Soravia, sons of a Carinthian construction industry family, and Christoph Dichand, son of the powerful boss of the Viennese Kronen Zeitung.
The trio had already applied for the first and so far only nationwide broadcasting license for private stations in Austria in autumn 2001 under the name Kanal 1. The buzzword of the planned Kronen-TV made the rounds. This has now come to nothing: The media authority KommAustria granted the broadcasting license to the station ATV, which was already broadcasting on Austrian cable networks.
Now the entrepreneurs have apparently developed alternative plans and want to set up a channel that serves Austria, Germany and Switzerland. A third of the program is to be produced in Zurich, as reported by SonntagsBlick. Project manager Peter Kölbel is currently sounding out the situation in Switzerland.
He is negotiating with Cablecom for a place in the cable network and is also putting out feelers to Tamedia and Ringier. However, Hans Jürg Deutsch, Head of Television at Ringier, has turned a deaf ear to the idea of a transnational private TV channel: "Who would pay for something like that? Ringier has never been interested." Deutsch knows that Kölbel was already negotiating with Jürg Wildberger during the final phase of TV 3. Is the failed Swiss private channel ultimately to be resurrected under the Austrian flag?
According to Kölbel, decisions will be made by mid-April. For the time being, however, the project manager is keeping a low profile. The Federal Office of Communications has not yet received a license application. Bruno Amstutz
The trio had already applied for the first and so far only nationwide broadcasting license for private stations in Austria in autumn 2001 under the name Kanal 1. The buzzword of the planned Kronen-TV made the rounds. This has now come to nothing: The media authority KommAustria granted the broadcasting license to the station ATV, which was already broadcasting on Austrian cable networks.
Now the entrepreneurs have apparently developed alternative plans and want to set up a channel that serves Austria, Germany and Switzerland. A third of the program is to be produced in Zurich, as reported by SonntagsBlick. Project manager Peter Kölbel is currently sounding out the situation in Switzerland.
He is negotiating with Cablecom for a place in the cable network and is also putting out feelers to Tamedia and Ringier. However, Hans Jürg Deutsch, Head of Television at Ringier, has turned a deaf ear to the idea of a transnational private TV channel: "Who would pay for something like that? Ringier has never been interested." Deutsch knows that Kölbel was already negotiating with Jürg Wildberger during the final phase of TV 3. Is the failed Swiss private channel ultimately to be resurrected under the Austrian flag?
According to Kölbel, decisions will be made by mid-April. For the time being, however, the project manager is keeping a low profile. The Federal Office of Communications has not yet received a license application. Bruno Amstutz
