Vienna set to become Central Europe’s TV production metropolis

The City of Vienna is developing into a leading international media location. Central Europe’s biggest TV production centre is currently under construction on the site of the former St. Marx abattoir in Vienna’s 3rd district. The centre will offer better opportunities especially for young entrepreneurs and for the new electronic media on the internet.

There are plans to extend the existing Media Quarter Marx in the former administrative offices of the abattoir with an additional project offering a total of 35,000 m² coupled with over 700 m² of studio space. Over 40 hours of television programming for several different countries (Austria, Germany, Switzerland, Hungary and Turkey) are already produced every day at the existing “Marx”. The new studios will feature cutting-edge technology as well as being designed for large-audience productions. At the present time, some 2,000 media companies in Vienna already employ over 50,000 people. The goal, according to Vice-Mayor Renate Brauner, is to consolidate the strengths of the Vienna economy at an ultramodern, innovative media location.




wieninternational.at’s foreign correspondent Ferdinand Hennerbichler spoke to Thomas Berndt about Media Quarter Marx and the ambitious expansion plans there. Thomas Berndt is spokesman for ZIT, the City of Vienna’s technology agency, for Media Quarter Marx.
 
Wieninternational.at: Mr. Berndt, we are now standing in the former administrative offices of Vienna’s abandoned abattoir, which is now the site of Marx Media Quarter. Can you please tell us a bit about what this stands for?
Berndt: Here we are now in Media Quarter Marx. We originally made a start with these administrative offices in 2003-2004, when we renovated the building together with two producers. Our goal was to build up shared infrastructures so that independent producers would be able to work here. We not only aimed for state-of-the-art infrastructures, but also wanted suitable personnel to be able to use them. The building was renovated in cooperation with ZIT, the Centre for Innovation and Technology, in a public-private partnership, and it has already been in operation for six years. We not only have office space for production companies here, but also technical facilities. What this means is that we now have 6 studios, 6 editing consoles, 6 directors’ consoles, and have up to 40 hours of live TV productions every day.

wieninternational.at: Who works here, then?
Berndt: A wide variety of different firms work here. In principle there is one main tenant, which is the operating company, Marx Media Vienna GmbH, which rents the entire space in this building and makes it available to its production companies. They include, for instance, “Mass respons”, a 100 per cent owned subsidiary of Telekom Austria, here on site, which produces a whole series of call-in formats for both the Austrian and European markets. There are other companies that also have productions here, using the studio capacities of Marx Media Vienna, the operating company, and sometimes its personnel too.




wieninternational.at: And what about the office staff? What do they do here?
Berndt: The majority of them carry out journalistic tasks, such as preparing productions, and so on. And the wonderful thing is that you can produce a draft at the same location, then just pop down a floor and get started with your production, or go straight into the editing rooms.

wieninternational.at: A propos of getting started: downstairs there is a larger studio, I believe, where they produce programmes like “Welcome Austria”?
Berndt: That’s correct. “Welcome Austria” is certainly the best known programme, and has been produced here for about two years now. They always produce two programmes at once so that they can have a live audience for these two units.

wieninternational.at: In principle, as far as I could see on my brief tour, you can actually produce anything here, from conventional, old-fashioned technologies to high-definition television (HDTV), and have the entire range of facilities at your disposal…
Berndt: Basically the on-site studios produce mainly call-in formats, like interactive quiz programmes. This is more of a low-price format that does not yet utilize HD technologies. Generally speaking, this location tends to specialize in TV formats that do not necessarily use HD production, which simply requires more expensive production and equipment. In the course of the expansion project, which will add a further 35,000 square metres to the complex by the year 2011, we shall have to consider how much space we will have to devote to HD quality, and this technology will then be housed there. However, it must be said that this is more of a TV production site, and not a film studio. It is becoming increasingly important to use HD for films.




wieninternational.at:  In order to round out this picture a bit, let me latch onto this last catchword: behind us is an enormous excavation pit where a gigantic project is coming into being. Can you tell us something about it, please?
Berndt: Yes, actually we now have two construction sites here. One of them is the excavation pit where the Media Quarter Marx expansion project with 35,000 square metres will be completed by mid 2011. And opposite is the site of the former meat market. It is interesting to note that this is the area under discussion for the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation. This area belongs to Wiener Stadtentwicklungs-Gesellschaft, a subsidiary of Wien-Holding, which also owns the neighbouring cattle halls. It remains to be seen exactly what strategy the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation will adopt. However, we would be very pleased if the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation were to take space here: this would mean that we could achieve a critical mass, and that this location would also get a higher profile internationally.

wieninternational.at: Finally, let us take a brief look at the Greater Vienna area. What is the situation here? I’d mention two cities in this context. In Prague there is a major film academy with an established tradition, and in Budapest they have also invested huge sums in a large film studio in the vicinity of the capital. The situation in Bratislava is somewhat different. In other words, in principle, if I have got this right, this project must be an absolutely perfect fit.
Berndt: Yes, indeed, this was our approach in leaving the emphasis on television productions. However, we also took a look around ourselves, and even visited the Corda Studios near Budapest. This is simply a miniature Hollywood. It is as if we wanted to compete with Berlin’s Babelsberg Studio. Here we have the Rosenhügel Studios, but they do not have any large production halls. In Austria, great films have been produced there. For us it was quite clear: we did not want to create competition within Vienna. And it was important to us to be able to offer these new, small formats, somewhat in the sense of media convergence, in the sense of the internet. We simply wanted to be able to offer many small companies a cluster where they could find their networks, and where they could successfully implement their products and services.




Wieninternational.at: In other words, in principle, this project precisely matches the development of media and markets in the Greater Vienna area. Thank you for this interview, Mr. Berndt.
Berndt: Thank you for coming!