Hitradio Ö3 is one of the nationwide

radio station Radio broadcasting is the broadcasting of audio (sound), sometimes with related metadata, by radio waves to radio receivers belonging to a public audience. In terrestrial radio broadcasting the radio waves are broadcast by a land-based rad ...

s of

Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...

public In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individual people, and the public (a.k.a. the general public) is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociology, sociological concept of the ''Öf ...

broadcaster ORF. The format focuses, since a reform in the late 1990s almost exclusively, on

contemporary hit radio Contemporary hit radio (CHR, also known as contemporary hits, hit list, current hits, hit music, top 40, or pop radio) is a radio format common in many countries that focuses on playing current and recurrent popular music as determined by the Top ...

, specialising in

pop music Pop music is a genre of popular music that originated in its modern form during the mid-1950s in the United States and the United Kingdom.S. Frith, W. Straw, and J. Street, eds, ''iarchive:cambridgecompani00frit, The Cambridge Companion to Pop ...

and chart hits from the 1980s to the present. Ö3 has by far the biggest audience share by far (averaging 31%) of all Austrian radio stations.

History

The station was launched by the ORF broadcaster on 1 October 1967 to a new numbered system, together with the classical music station Österreich 1 and the local radios of the Ö2 group, following a 1964 national

referendum A referendum, plebiscite, or ballot measure is a Direct democracy, direct vote by the Constituency, electorate (rather than their Representative democracy, representatives) on a proposal, law, or political issue. A referendum may be either bin ...

against the alignment of the public broadcasting service on the Austrian political '' Proporz'' system. The journalist and radio host Ernst Grissemann was commissioned to build up an

entertainment Entertainment is a form of activity that holds the attention and Interest (emotion), interest of an audience or gives pleasure and delight. It can be an idea or a task, but it is more likely to be one of the activities or events that have deve ...

station; he was supported by Frank Elstner, who had worked for Radio Luxembourg, and André Heller presenting the ''Musicbox''

avant-garde music Avant-garde music is music that is considered to be at the forefront of innovation in its field, with the term "avant-garde" implying a critique of existing aesthetic conventions, rejection of the status quo in favor of unique or original elem ...

journal. Grissemann served as programme director until 1979, known as "Mister Ö3". A 24-hour programme was introduced in 1977, including hourly news broadcasts,

weather forecasts Weather is the state of the atmosphere, describing for example the degree to which it is hot or cold, wet or dry, calm or stormy, clear or cloud cover, cloudy. On Earth, most weather phenomena occur in the lowest layer of the planet's atmo ...

, and traffic news in co-operation with the public ASFiNAG transport company. In the 1980s the popular ''Ö3-Wecker'' morning show was also aired by the German Sender Freies Berlin broadcaster. Unlike the present-day format radio programme, the Ö3 schedules initially comprised alternative genres and many specialist music shows, with radio hosts like satirists Gerhard Bronner and Stermann & Grissemann, singer-songwriter Ludwig Hirsch or theatre director Axel Corti. While Schlager music was proscribed, the station played a vital role in promoting German-language Austropop tunes. Since a reorganization of ORF's radio channels in 1996, shortly before the introduction in Austria of private commercial radio, alternative programmes have been moved to Ö1 or the newly established FM4 young-adult radio station.

Operation

Since 1997, Ö3 has broadcast from a large office floor in the Heiligenstadt district of

Vienna Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...

. Transmissions include the survey of the Austrian

record charts A record chart, in the music industry, also called a music chart, is a ranking of Sound recording and reproduction, recorded music according to certain criteria during a given period. Many different criteria are used in worldwide charts, ofte ...

, since 1967 presented by the weekly Austria Top 40 programme. Current renowned presenters include Andi Knoll, Katharina Bellowitsch and Philipp Hansa. Band contests like ''Ö3-Soundcheck'' promoted the career of Austrian music groups such as SheSays, Luttenberger*Klug, Mondscheiner, and Excuse Me Moses. The station participates in the annual Donauinselfest music festival, the '' Licht ins Dunkel'' telethon and co-operates with the Austrian Red Cross. The station also broadcasts via

satellite television Satellite television is a service that delivers television programming to viewers by relaying it from a communications satellite orbiting the Earth directly to the viewer's location.ITU Radio Regulations, Section IV. Radio Stations and Systems ...

, with a display showing the previous, current and upcoming tracks, the time and other information such as traffic reports. The station's website provides latest reports and information, record charts, a studio

webcam A webcam is a video camera which is designed to record or stream to a computer or computer network. They are primarily used in Videotelephony, video telephony, live streaming and social media, and Closed-circuit television, security. Webcams can b ...

, streaming audio, and a daily

playlist A playlist is a list of video or audio files that can be played back on a media player, either sequentially or in a shuffled order. In its most general form, an audio playlist is simply a list of songs that can be played once or in a loop. ...

reaching back to 2009. Several broadcasts are available as

podcast A podcast is a Radio program, program made available in digital format for download over the Internet. Typically, a podcast is an Episode, episodic series of digital audio Computer file, files that users can download to a personal device or str ...

s. Ö3 was for a long time the only ORF station permitted to broadcast commercials, and it remains the station with the largest reach and amount of advertising time per day, more than all private radio stations together. For this reason it is often called "ORF's cash cow".

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Hitradio O3 Radio stations in Austria Radio stations established in 1967 1967 establishments in Austria ORF (broadcaster)

History

Operation

See also

External links