Austria’s Wiener Zeitung, one of world’s oldest newspapers, to end its daily print run and move online

Wiener Zeitung, one of the world’s oldest newspapers, is set to end its daily print run and move online!

The move comes as the country’s parliament on Thursday made the decision marking the final step in a years-long dispute between the Austrian government and the newspaper about the future of the state-owned daily.

“It is adopted with a majority,” Norbert Hofer, the third president of the parliament, said of a new law to primarily move the publication online from July 1.

As reported, the paper will maintain a minimum of ten print publications per year, depending on the funds available.

In 2004, Austria’s Wiener Zeitung was ranked as one of the oldest newspapers still in circulation.

The publication which has survived the Austrian-Hungarian, Russian and Ottoman empires, the First and Second World Wars, and the Cold War, will now step into the digital world.


Founded in 1703 under the name Wiennerisches Diarium, it was later renamed Wiener Zeitung in 1780, the formerly private bi-weekly paper was nationalised by Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria in 1857, becoming the country’s official gazette.


“Some fear that the government just wants to keep the Wiener Zeitung brand with its 320-year-old history, while nobody knows what the future publication will look like,” its vice managing editor Mathias Ziegler told AFP.

Meanwhile, the Wiener Zeitung will establish a media hub, a content agency, and a training centre for journalists.

“Some fear that the government just wants to keep the Wiener Zeitung brand with its 320-year-old history, while nobody knows what the future publication will look like — whether it will still be serious journalism,” its vice managing editor said.

The publication is reported to have a circulation of about 20,000 on weekdays and about twice as much on weekends.

According to its trade union, almost half of the newspaper’s over 200 employees — 40 of whom are journalists — could be laid off.