On Sunday, the ORF submitted its first transparency report, which is mandatory under the ORF amendment to the Federal Chancellery, to the Federal Chancellery, which was published on Tuesday.
This also includes those employees who receive a gross annual salary including allowances of 170,000 euros per year or higher. The report was also available to the APA on Monday. Accordingly is Ö3 presenter Robert Kratky is the house’s top earner.
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Kratky receives a gross annual salary of 440,000 euros
In total, the table includes those public broadcasting employees who earn over 170,000 euros, i.e. around 60 people. General Director Weißmann stated in a written statement to the APA that this only represents around 1.3 percent of the group’s total workforce. “Some of the salaries on the list are due to old collective agreements from the 70s and 80s and very long years of service. Such contracts have not been concluded for decades and are therefore being phased out,” emphasized the ORF boss. Around a third of the people on the list will be retiring in the next three years or have already left the company last year.
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Top 10 top earners on ORF
The two of them are also among the top 10 top earners on ORF ORF III managing director Peter Schöber (283,000 euros) and Kathrin Zierhut-Kunz (around 260,000 euros) as well as the board of directors Eva Schindlauer (commercial director, 280,000 euros), Ingrid Thurnher (radio), Stefanie Groiss-Horowoitz (program) and Harald Kräuter (technology) each with 270,000 euros. Among the prominent names in the list are “ZiB 2” anchorman and deputy editor-in-chief Armin Wolf (253,000 euros plus 3,800 euros in monthly additional income), “citizen lawyer” Peter Resetarits (210,000 euros plus 64 euros in monthly additional income), Ukraine and Balkan correspondent Christian Wehrschütz (197,000 euros plus 6,000 euros in monthly additional income) or Ö3 and song contest presenter Andi Knoll (190,000 euros plus 9,600 euros in monthly additional income).
Weißmann In his statement, he fundamentally acknowledged the stricter transparency requirements, However, the mention of the name above 170,000 euros was “quite critical”., because apart from the ORF, no other public organization or institution in the country is obliged to do so and it will primarily fuel the debate about envy and fuel public polemics.” It is to be feared “that the publication of this report will lead to further polemics up to and including personal attacks on employees of the company, which I, as Director General, refuse to do. The ORF will also legally prosecute any statements that damage its reputation or even threats against individual employees,” said Weißmann.
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After the numbers were leaked on Easter Monday In any case, political reactions were not long in coming. Media Minister Susanne Raab (ÖVP) believes it is “good and right that the new law will finally give the ORF the highest possible level of transparency after many decades, including when it comes to top salaries.” ÖVP General Secretary Christian Stocker noted the imbalances that had become visible in this regard and judged: “The exorbitant salaries in the ORF must come to an end. It is up to the leadership of the ORF to clarify who approved these dream salaries and how they came about.” Weißmann has to clean up the “salary excesses”. For FPÖ General Secretary Christian Hafenecker, the published salaries are “downright obscene.” Among other things, he focused on additional income. “Actually, you should consider whether you should offset the additional jobs against the ORF fee,” is the blue suggestion.