Seite - 88 - in Media – Migration – Integration - European and North American Perspectives

Petra Herczeg | Migrants and Ethnic Minorities in Austria 88 4.2.1 Television At the same time when the nationwide programme “Heimat, fremde Heimat” is broadcast in the region of Burgenland, there is a 25-minute programme for Croats (“Dobar dan Hrvati”) and, in Carinthia, a television program for Slovenes (“Dober dan, Koroska”). The programme consists of a mixture of current affairs and more traditional topics, such as villages and local peculiarities or other cultural concerns. In addition, ORF Burgenland broadcasts a quadri-lingual television programme called “Servus Szia Zdravo del tuha” four times a year. This is an information programme about the ethnic minorities that live in Burgenland. The main focus is on cultural topics, and the programme is also available as a download on the Internet. 4.2.2 Radio Here, media staff and institutions do not debate the use of minority languages, nor is there any mandatory arrangement of multilingual programmes. Of course, these circumstances have an impact on the media situation of ethnic minorities in Austria. Space prevents the mention of all the relevant programmes broadcast by the ORF in the past. But it should be noted that in 2001, the ORF and two private radio organizations established a combined public and private radio station for ethnic minorities in Carinthia: Radio Dva. Radio Dva offers a Slovene and a partly bilingual (German and Slovene) 24- hour programme, including much music. That is, much of the time on the air does not involve spoken language. This is symptomatic for the specific situation of programmes for ethnic minorities. Journalists attempt to reach a target group that has a wide variety of different interests and cannot be defined with a quota. One of the effects is that the Slovene language has become nearly extinct in the local majority radio programme, for the broadcasts in Burgenland now only include: 40 minutes daily for the Croatian, 5 minutes for Hungarian minorities and a number of services in the language of the Roma. With the introduction of private radio stations in Burgenland in 1998, Radio Mora was established as a trilingual radio project involving the languages Croatian, Hungarian and Romani. These three ethnic minorities shared one radio license with a commercial provider. This project was terminated in 2001, when the government stopped providing financial support.