About CHiLLi.cc

CHiLLi.cc

CHiLLi.cc was an independent Austrian online youth magazine, published from Vienna between September 1999 and March 2010 under the banner of Europe's independent youth page. From September 2002 its online editions appeared weekly, on Tuesdays, covering Austrian politics, Europe, world politics, culture, society and sport, with a particular eye for youth relevance and niche subjects that the mainstream press neglected. It was made, in its own defining phrase, by young people for young people, with a newsroom of around fifty volunteer contributors. In May 2008 the European Parliament named its editorial team the best youth online editorial team in its youth press competition. Its history was rarely calm: founded first as a print project, relaunched as an online weekly, suspended in 2008 after a failed merger, rescued within weeks through a cooperation with Die Presse, and finally replaced in March 2010 by its successor portal mokant.at, CHiLLi.cc nonetheless sustained a decade of independent youth journalism in Austria.

Founding in 1999 and the print beginnings

CHiLLi was founded on 7 August 1999 by the journalists Janos Aladar Fehervary and Erich Nuler at a first planning and editorial meeting, with the aim of bringing out a print product by the end of that year; the journalist Thomas Rottenberg acted as a consultant to the young newsroom in 1999 and 2000. Financing a print magazine proved difficult as the advertising market contracted and youth advertising budgets were cut across Austria. The first step was digital: on 1 September 1999 a static website for the planned print magazine went live under the name CHiLLi pur, and from November 1999 it carried dynamic, daily updated content. The first print product followed on 20 December 1999 with a print run of 65,000 copies, supported by contracts with the Vienna SPOe and several Austrian banks that expressly guaranteed editorial freedom and independent journalistic work. That guarantee mattered, because the tension between outside funding and the claim to independence would shape the magazine's next restructuring.

The association, independence and the online relaunch

In 2001 the CHiLLi association was founded and became the media owner of the magazine, drawing a clear line of separation from the Vienna SPOe. The association, CHiLLi, Association for Free and Independent Media Work, was founded by Fehervary, Robert Holubarz and Helmut Wandl, and it had to buy the domains back from the SPOe for 50,000 schillings, equivalent to 3,622.64 euros, so that CHiLLi.cc could publish independently on the web. In May 2001 the association published its first and last print edition. Because interest among former contributors and readers in continuing remained strong, the title was reconceived as a weekly online product, financed mainly through members' contributions, donations and private capital from its members. Weekly production began on 1 September 2002 with a newsroom of around fifteen editorial staff, working from a basement office in a municipal housing building in the Pfeilgasse in Vienna's Josefstadt district. In the years that followed, the contributor base grew again to around fifty to sixty volunteers, the scale on which the magazine operated for most of its life.

Content, editorial line and the second newspaper idea

CHiLLi.cc described its editorial line as socially liberal. It addressed itself principally to young readers and wanted to promote the development of young people outside school and university. It declared itself independent of political parties, institutions and interest groups, while committing itself in its editorial statutes against racism, sexism and populism, and it paid particular attention in its reporting to youth organisations and youth culture. Alongside the departments for Austria, Europe, the world, culture, society and sport, the editors published weekly commentaries and glosses, and guest commentaries by subject experts such as academics and politicians appeared regularly. The magazine understood itself as a second newspaper: its weekly rhythm and its concentration on youth-related niche subjects were meant to extend, rather than duplicate, the rest of Austria's media landscape. Self-reported figures from the magazine and its marketer described around 65,000 readers a month in unique clients, around 670,000 page impressions a month and 12,000 members in its online community, appearing 52 Tuesdays a year; this profile attributes those figures to the title's own presentation, as no independent audit of them is documented in the sources consulted.

Expansion to Innsbruck and Graz

To strengthen reporting beyond the capital, the Vienna newsroom was joined in April 2007 by a western editorial office in Innsbruck, founded and led by Stefan Hohenwarter, with a remit covering western Austria, southern Germany and northern Italy including South Tyrol. At the beginning of 2008 work began on building an editorial office in Graz as well. The expansion mattered symbolically for a youth title: CHiLLi.cc was attempting the regional structure of an established news organisation, staffed by volunteers, while remaining owned by a small association. Hohenwarter's later role as a co-founder of the successor, mokant.at, also traces a direct line of personnel continuity from the Innsbruck expansion to the magazine's eventual relaunch.

Cabaret, campaigns and public projects

The magazine's cultural reporting produced one of its most visible projects in 2005, when culture journalist Michaela Fabian built intensive cabaret coverage with the aim of giving young cabaret artists greater public effect. Under the motto CHiLLi.cc makes cabaret, Austrian cabaret performers including Josef Hader, Pepi Hopf, I Stangl, Fredi Jirkal, Leo Lukas, Gerold Rudle, Thomas Stipsits and Mike Supancic took to the stage in return. In May and June 2006 readers took part in the initiative Austria elects the youth chancellor, an online vote won by Georg Hanschitz; the project ended without political success after the then youth minister, Ursula Haubner, withdrew support she had originally promised. A graphic relaunch in May 2005 and a redesign on 3 June 2008, at which the title's self-description changed from Austria's independent youth page to Europe's independent youth page, marked its presentational development across the decade.

The European Parliament award of May 2008

In May 2008 the CHiLLi.cc editorial team was named the best youth online editorial team by the European Parliament within its European youth press competition. The award, recorded by the Austrian information office of the European Parliament, is the magazine's most significant documented honour and it arrived at the peak of its public standing, months before the crisis that nearly ended it. For a volunteer newsroom working from a basement office in the Josefstadt, recognition at European level validated the founding proposition that young people, given a real publication and real responsibility, could produce journalism judged the best of its kind in Europe.

Suspension in 2008 and rescue by Die Presse

The crisis grew out of a strategy that failed. From March to August 2008 the association entered a strategic cooperation with the marketing services company Cycamp GmbH, known as Uniwerbung, aimed at merging CHiLLi with Cycamp, and the editorial office moved from the Pfeilgasse to the Cycamp office on Universitaetsstrasse in the Alsergrund. At the end of August 2008 the final merger negotiations failed and the cooperation was dissolved with effect from 31 August. Lacking the necessary investment capital, the makers of CHiLLi.cc saw no long-term business or publishing perspective: the association stopped the editorial operation at the end of August, the closure was announced on 2 September 2008 to considerable Austrian media attention, and the assets around CHiLLi.cc were offered for sale. Fehervary told the weekly Die Furche that offers had come from two larger domestic publishing houses and that a resumption with a large Austrian quality media house from October was possible. At the end of September 2008 that is, in effect, what happened: CHiLLi.cc was rescued through a cooperation with Die Presse, the sale was averted, and from 7 October 2008 the magazine appeared weekly again.

The end of the Presse cooperation and the birth of mokant.at

The rescue did not outlast the following year. At the end of 2009 the cooperation with Die Presse was dissolved. The association then re-founded itself without Janos Aladar Fehervary, the publisher who had led CHiLLi.cc since 1999 alongside Helmut Wandl, and on 18 March 2010 it launched the new online portal mokant.at. CHiLLi.cc had been statically online from September 1999 to March 2010; its weekly editorial life had run, with the interruption of autumn 2008, from September 2002. The successor kept the association, part of the team and the training ethos, but retired the name under which Austrian youth journalism had won its European award.

Legacy in Austrian youth media

CHiLLi.cc's legacy rests on documented ground: a decade of weekly youth publishing from 1999 to 2010, a volunteer newsroom that grew from fifteen relaunch staff to around fifty or more contributors, regional offices in Innsbruck and Graz, a socially liberal editorial line independent of parties, a European Parliament award in 2008, and a successor that carried its model through most of the following decade. Its financing history, moving from party and bank contracts through association membership, donations and private capital to advertising, content sales and a final rescue partnership with a national daily, also makes it an unusually complete case study in how independent youth media survived in Austria before social platforms absorbed their audience. Where the record is thin, this profile says so plainly: some internal figures survive only as the magazine's self-presentation, and no verified account of a formal final issue beyond the March 2010 transition to mokant.at is documented in the sources consulted.