With a focus on culture and information, a lot of contemporary history and regionality, new formats from science and cabaret and much more
Vienna (OTS) – ORF III Culture and Information – represented by ORF III managing directors Peter Schöber and Kathrin Zierhut – presented a particularly extensive bouquet of red-white-red program highlights, which does justice to a super election year and super cultural year with numerous events and anniversaries. Kunz and ORF III editor-in-chief Lou Lorenz-Dittlbacher – today, Monday, February 26, 2024, at the ORF media campus.
Schöber: “Even more program for everyone in this country”
“As a public broadcaster, our job is to prepare a wide range of content for a large audience. ORF III plays an important role, depicts cultural and socially relevant events in all their facets and offers a platform in particular to local artists. It is in our core DNA to take on a unifying function with art and culture, history communication and objective, balanced information. With more than 40 regular formats and more than 800,000 viewers every day, ORF III fulfills exactly this claim, is Europe’s most successful German-language cultural and information channel and – true to the motto ‘ORF for everyone’ – creates even more programming for everyone in this country “, announces ORF III program manager Peter Schöber.
Lorenz-Dittlbacher: “Meeting the high demands and expectations of the audience”
“To be able to successfully cope with a super election year like this year requires equidistance, prudence, experience, curiosity and creativity. The ORF III Information team will do everything in its power to meet the audience’s high demands and expectations.”
Zierhut-Kunz: “The range of meaningful program hours is particularly high”
“A potpourri of high-quality public service content in the area of culture and information, and increasingly online too – that is ‘ORF III for everyone’. In the super election year and super cultural year 2024 – keyword cultural capital Bad Ischl Salzkammergut, 200 years of the premiere of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony, 200 years of Bruckner etc. – the range of content-packed program hours for our loyal audience will be particularly high. Together with a highly motivated team as well as highly professional production partners and cultural institutions, we will be happy to overcome this challenge.”
The ORF III program highlights 2024 – an overview:
In 2024, ORF III will present its audience with numerous new productions and formats in addition to the established ORF III own brands from the areas of culture, information, regionality and current affairs. The station’s broad spectrum is being expanded with the development of new in-house productions, including formats such as “Werner Gruber’s Experimental Kitchen” (from March 13th, monthly on Wednesdays at 10:30 p.m.), in which physicist Werner Gruber amazes the audience, or “Gesundheit im Conversation” with Denise Seifert (from April, monthly on Saturdays at 4:25 p.m.). “Wiener Liedkunst” (from Thursday, February 29th, 11:45 p.m.) is the name of a two-part program in the cabaret area with Viennese song virtuoso Agnes Palmisano, who brings together various artists who have cultivated the genre over the past decades to make music and chat Heurigen invites you. In June, ORF III presents the “Austrian Lotteries Cabaret Talent Show”, which gives industry newcomers a stage. From April onwards, “Cabaret stars from the Güssinger Kultursommer” will be the focus under the new artistic director Andreas Vitásek. From autumn onwards, ORF III will also be supporting young local cabaret artists with the “Mimi Wunderer Cabaret Prize” and a show of the same name from the ORF RadioKulturhaus.
One of the cultural highlights of the current ORF III program year is the major project “European Capital of Culture Bad Ischl Salzkammergut 2024”. After broadcasting the opening in January, ORF III will provide media coverage of the cultural capital’s diverse offerings throughout the year and will show further highlights, including concerts, new documentaries and special programs, including, for the first time – in collaboration with the Salzkammergut Festwochen Gmunden – the current tour program of the “Herbert Pixner Project” from the Toscana Park in Gmunden. Also on the schedule: the open-air highlight “Klassikstars am Traunsee” with Erwin Schrott.
Two special cultural anniversaries can also be found in the ORF III program in 2024: As part of an ORF focus on the 200th anniversary of the premiere of Ludwig van Beethoven’s 9th Symphony, the broadcaster is honoring the now world-famous oeuvre with concerts and documentaries, among other things. On May 7th, the historic anniversary, the live, time-shifted transmission of the work, interpreted by the Vienna Symphony Orchestra under Joana Mallwitz, from the Vienna Konzerthaus is on the program. With this production, ORF III also becomes part of a unique European television project with ARTE, which will broadcast the four movements of Beethoven’s “Ninth” one after the other live (time-shifted) from four European cities on May 7th, played by four top orchestras, each under top-class musical direction . ORF III contributes the final fourth movement with the “Ode to Joy”, on which the famous European anthem is based.
To mark the 200th birthday of Anton Bruckner, the musical ruler of the year, ORF III will show a concert by the Bruckner Orchestra Linz with chief conductor Markus Poschner and world-famous vocal soloists from the St. Florian Basilica on September 4th, also live with a time delay. On the program: Bruckner’s “Te Deum” and his 9th Symphony.
The “ORF III Cultural Summer” once again guarantees a variety of brilliant stage moments from the most important cultural venues throughout Austria, including the live broadcast of the Verdi classic “Aida” from the opera in the St. Margarethen quarry (July 10th). Opening concert of the Grafenegg Festival (August 16th), Wagner’s “Ring des Nibelungen” from the Kasematten Graz as “The Ring in an Evening” (August) with the highlights of the magnum opus, and also with Rossini’s “Tancredi” (expected in June). this year’s house opera of the Bregenz Festival, a new edition of the concert series “Klassik unter Sternen” with Elīna Garanča (July), Dvořák’s “From the New World” (July 12) from the Styriarte, from the Burg Gars Opera with “L’elisir d ‘amore’ (expected in August) the Donizetti hit, Strauss’ operetta classic ‘Wiener Blut’ (August) from the Baden stage or Peter Turrini’s version of Goldoni’s ‘The Servant of Two Masters’ (August) from the Schloss-Spielen Kobersdorf. In addition, ORF III is showing the final concert of the Carinthian Summer for the first time (expected in August), with which the ORF Radio Symphony Orchestra Vienna is celebrating its debut as a festival orchestra. Also in the program: in June, the Danube Island Festival and the Woodstock of brass music, over several days and live at different times, also in “Cabaret under the stars:
“The Round Table” open air events (from June).
Other important cultural highlights in 2024 on ORF III include the new production of the Lehár operetta “The Merry Widow” (March 10) from the Vienna Volksoper, music club concerts by the Vienna Philharmonic with Franz Welser-Möst (March 3), Lorenzo Viotti and Christian Thielemann and Igor Levit (both in spring), “A Festival for Haydn” (Spring), from the Vienna State Opera Barry Kosky’s completion of the Da Ponte cycle with “Così fan tutte” (June) and much more
The documentary “Heritage Austria” tells the extraordinary story of outstanding personalities, buildings and art treasures. In 2024, among other things, the new production “Ischler Biographies” (May) as part of the focus on the Capital of Culture, the continuation of the extensive Vienna focus started in 2023, including the production “Grätzelgeschichte – Bohemian Vienna” (March 5) and “Clean Vienna : (Environmental) cosmopolitan city in transition” (March 19th), or with “Metternich – Cursed and misunderstood” (autumn) you can see the biography of Prince Metternich. ORF III highlights Austrian regional history in numerous other documentaries: “The waterways in Austria” (April) or “Austria – Land in Noble Hands” (November).
Starting in April, a multi-part series on the ORF III program “zeit.geschichte” will focus on “The Kaiser’s Faithful” at the end of the monarchy and shed light on central personalities of the First World War such as “The Kaiser’s Weaponsmiths”, “The Austro-Hungarian U-Boat -Captains” or “The daring aviators in the First World War”. New editions of the “zeit.geschichte” series “Fateful Days of Austria” highlight, among other things, “The Introduction of the Euro” (June), “The Water of the Century 2002” (July) and the “Letter Bomb Terror” by Franz Fuchs (Autumn). Starting in the fall, the four-part series “Yugoslavia – The Disappeared Country” will provide insights into the complexity of Yugoslavian society and a focus evening will be devoted to “Elections in the USA.” The stories of “true crimes” in Austria – “The Escape King Adolf Schandl” (April 6th), “The Lucona Case” and “Franz Fuchs” (both in autumn) – or fascinating biographies in the As part of the format “acting legends” such as Senta Wengraf and Susi Nicoletti (both April 20th) as well as “Austrian television jewels” such as “A real Viennese does not go under” (May) and “Inspector Rex” (autumn). Other “zeit.geschichte” productions deal with, among others, “Hitler’s Executive – The Austrian Police in National Socialism” (Spring), “History of the Adult Education Centers” (May), “Land of Fields – History of the Farmers in Austria” (September) or “Austria and the Fall of the Wall” (November).
At the end of the year, ORF III – after the brilliant start in the last Christmas program – is entering the second of four seasons with the successful 40-episode production “Austria – The Whole Story”, presented by Andreas Pfeifer and Mariella Gittler, and picking up where the first ended. Starting at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries, ten new episodes work their way up to the collapse of the monarchy at the beginning of the 20th century. The multimedia prestige project is accompanied by the podcast of the same name and is available on all common platforms, including ORF Sound.
In the super election year of 2024, ORF III Information will demonstrate its proven information competence under the leadership of editor-in-chief Lou Lorenz-Dittlbacher. The program offers comprehensive reporting from the EU election to the National Council election to the state elections in Styria and Vorarlberg as well as the US presidential election. Daily live reporting in “ORF III AKTUELL” as well as political programs such as “Round of Editors-in-Chief” and “Inside Brussels” provide reliable, fact-based and independent journalistic information. In addition to numerous live broadcasts and special productions, press conferences, interviews with political actors and experts as well as knowledge and fact checks are offered as part of the “ORF III Knowledge Check” and the “Facts with Profile” section in “ORF III AKTUELL”. The weekly discussions in the program “zur SACHE” as well as the traditional “summer (after) discussions” are further highlights of the program in 2024.
Further details about the ORF III program 2024 are available at presse.ORF.at.