The staff of the Media Division of the Austrian Regulatory Authority for Broadcasting and Telecommunications (RTR Media) are experts in the fields of law, technology, frequency management, business, subsidies, and communication. Under the leadership of Managing Director Mag. Wolfgang Struber, they perform the wide range of tasks assigned to RTR Media as a regulatory body.
As operative agency of the Austrian Communications Authority KommAustria, RTR Media prepares the authority's decisions with its team of lawyers, engineers and business experts, and informs the public of the decisions taken. RTR Media is also directly responsible for administering, assessing and allocating of subsidies for Austrian media and television film productions from funds set up at RTR Media. With our activities, we are constantly expanding our understanding of the Austrian and international media landscape and worldwide technological and economic developments. This knowledge informs the planning of our information events, studies and reports, and can be accessed through our online databases.
RTR Media provides support for KommAustria in its areas of competence. This includes acting as supervisory authority of the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation (ORF) and its subsidiaries, all administrative proceedings involving the regulation of private broadcasting (television and radio) and audiovisual online media services, as well as monitoring advertising, administration of the Act on Transparency in Media Cooperation and Funding (MedKF-TG), press and journalism subsidies, and broadcasting frequency management.
RTR Media is directly responsible for administering subsidies from funds aimed at preserving and expanding a media market of Austrian productions in a highly competitive environment of same-language broadcasting services from neighbouring countries and international online services. The variety of the Austrian media landscape is the goal, but the market can only draw on a comparatively small domestic advertising market for funding. RTR Media has been given responsibility for the Private Broadcasting Fund, the Non-Commercial Broadcasting Fund, the Austrian Television Fund, the Digitalisation Fund and the Fund for the Promotion of Digital Transformation.