Media Industry in Crisis: Job Cuts Continue Unabated

Media companies are responding to declining advertising revenues, AI overviews on the internet, and a slowly developing willingness to pay online. The GPA union is alarmed and plans to present demands to secure editorial offices. Media Minister Andreas Babler (SPÖ) also sees "no good development."

Job Cuts: "Kleine Zeitung" Parts Ways with Dozens of Employees

The "Kleine Zeitung" has recently joined the long list of media companies parting with staff. According to APA information, the daily newspaper is expected to part with over 30 employees - the majority from the editorial team. A request made on Friday remained unanswered. Editor-in-chief Oliver Pokorny confirmed to "Horizont" that the AMS would be informed about planned personnel measures.

It was only recently revealed that the Red Bull Media House (ServusTV, "Servus in Stadt & Land") is cutting about a tenth of its 600-strong workforce. In the weeks and months prior, it affected Regionalmedien Austria (RMA), the "Presse," the "Standard," and the private broadcaster Puls 24, which is cutting back on its online news editorial team. The "Kurier" and the "Kronen Zeitung" had already announced larger savings packages last year.

Over 2,000 Journalists Cut in 20 Years

This continues a development that has been ongoing for many years. According to the "Journalists Report" by Medienhaus Wien, there were around 7,100 full-time journalists working in Austria in 2007. The most recent general survey from 2018/2019 recorded only 5,350. Since then, according to observations by Medienhaus-Wien Managing Director Andy Kaltenbrunner, the number of journalists has fallen to well below 5,000. This means that in less than 20 years, over 2,000 journalistic jobs may have been lost.

The precarious situation is primarily due to advertising revenues massively migrating to international digital giants. Meanwhile, print subscription numbers are shrinking, while the willingness to pay to view news sites behind paywalls is only slowly developing. For some time now, media companies have also been dealing with AI overviews from Google and others, which result in significantly fewer visits to the portals of local media companies, as users often settle for the automatically generated overviews or summaries, often based on news, instead of clicking on a link.

GPA Union: Situation "Alarming"

The union GPA and the press club Concordia are inviting to a press conference on Thursday. "The economic situation of the media industry in Austria is alarming," the invitation states. They want to present demands for the protection of editorial offices and journalists.

Media Minister Babler: "Not a Good Development"

These likely also concern Vice Chancellor and Media Minister Andreas Babler (SPÖ). He expressed concern at the APA's request in view of the numerous layoffs: "This is, of course, not a good development." However, politics can only create framework conditions. "We support the Austrian media landscape every year with 80 million euros. And in the government program, we have agreed to launch further multi-million euro subsidies. And this, even though the overall budgetary situation is very, very tense," he noted.

For next year, Babler announced a distribution subsidy to support media houses in newspaper delivery. "Additionally, we are currently developing a concept to finance media consumption for young people, to strengthen their media literacy and thus their democratic competence," said Babler. In the long term, however, it must be ensured that media are economically sustainable without becoming dependent on the state, the media minister stated.

Government Advertisements at a Low Point

Government advertisements are often considered unofficial media subsidies and constitute a significant part of advertising revenue for some media houses. For instance, the media group Österreich expressed alarm in an article published on Monday that the government has recently drastically reduced its advertisements. The media transparency data published by the media authority KommAustria in mid-October reveal that public sector advertising expenditures fell by 20 million euros in the first half of 2025 compared to the first half of 2024. A large part of this is attributable to the federal government, which reduced its advertising expenditures from 18.7 million euros to 3.2 million euros - a low point.

"On the one hand, as everyone knows, the budgetary situation in Austria is extremely tense. On the other hand, we do not want to conduct media policy through advertisements," Babler told the APA. Furthermore, the law states that public sector advertisements may only be placed if a specific information need is met. "We therefore rely on additional subsidies, which we have also agreed upon and are implementing in the government program," said the media minister.

(APA/Red)

This article has been automatically translated, read the original article here.