Kronen Zeitung - Methods Used By The Newspaper

Methods Used By The Newspaper

It became apparent soon after the re-establishment of the Krone that the newspaper used unorthodox methods against the competition.

• Kurt Falk is considered the inventor of the so-called "Sonntagsstandln", which are plastic bags with little money boxes installed on poles on the streets and pavements, containing the Sunday edition (on Sundays, most shops are closed in Austria). This idea, which was derided by the competition in the beginning, quickly caught on and is very popular today.
• In 1963 Kurt Falk came to a mutual agreement with the competitor at that time Kleines Volksblatt that both papers would change from a small format to broadsheet. The Kleines Volksblatt kept their end of the bargain and changed their format, but the Kronen Zeitung kept their original small format and thereby won 40,000 new readers. When the Kleines Volksblatt subsequently folded, the Krone could not resist poking fun at them for having changed their format in the first place.
• In 1970 Falk and Dichand bought the tabloid Express, shutting it down after the acquisition.
• After one of the most important printing houses of Austria, the Pressehaus in Vienna, was sold in 1972 to the BAWAG bank (which in turn had close connections to the social-democratic ÖGB union), the Krone threatened to build its own printing house and thus forced the BAWAG to sell the whole deal to the Krone.
• In 1995 the Krone sued the Viennese city newspaper Falter for several million Schillings for allegedly having violated the competition laws because of a gaming action. The Falter only barely escaped financial ruin. It is suspected that the Krone tried to shut down the Falter because of its critical reporting of the Krone. In the Austrian National Council, the Green politician Karl Öllinger called the case an attack on press-freedom.
• After broadcasting the critical documentary Kronen Zeitung - Tag für Tag ein Boulevardstück (Kronen Zeitung - Day by day a boulevard play) by the Franco-German TV station Arte, the Krone eliminated the station from their TV page. Austrian National Television, the ORF probably decided not to show the documentary in order to avoid conflict. However, when in 2005 the private Austrian TV station ATV+ showed the documentary, no further action was taken from part of the Krone.