About Kurier

Kurier

The Kurier is a German-language national daily newspaper based in Vienna and one of Austria's best-known quality-popular titles, occupying the middle ground between the tabloid Kronen Zeitung and the broadsheet quality press. Published in Berliner format, it combines national and international news, business, culture and sport with a centrist, liberal and pro-European editorial line. For readers who find the Krone too populist and Die Presse or Der Standard too demanding for everyday reading, the Kurier has for decades been the natural daily choice.

Its modern scale is more modest than its historic peak but still substantial. In 2023 the paper had an edition of approximately 103,000 copies, and the ÖAK figures for 2025 cited in Austrian listings give a print run of about 98,048 copies. Historically the Kurier was Austria's third best-selling daily, with a circulation of 390,000 copies in 1993, and in the late 1980s, with about 443,000 copies, it was ranked among the largest newspapers in the world. That long arc, from occupation newspaper to mass daily to a smaller quality title, mirrors the history of the Austrian press itself.

From Wiener Kurier to Neuer Kurier

The Kurier was founded as the Wiener Kurier by the United States Forces in Austria in 1945, during the Allied occupation that followed the Second World War. The American occupation papers introduced a more popular, American-influenced form of journalism to Austria, with clearer news writing and stronger presentation than readers had been used to, and historians credit that influence with shaping post-war Austrian journalism as a whole. The Wiener Kurier was one of the most successful of those occupation foundations.

In 1954 the paper was acquired and re-established by Ludwig Polsterer as the Neuer Kurier, the New Kurier, the date from which the modern newspaper dates its founding. Under Austrian ownership it grew into a fully independent national daily. The early editorial leadership included figures who would shape Austrian media for decades: Hans Dichand, later the founder of the modern Kronen Zeitung, was editor-in-chief from 1955 to 1958, followed by Hugo Portisch from 1958 to 1967, whose name became synonymous with Austrian documentary and contemporary-history broadcasting. The paper later shortened its name to Kurier.

Ownership: Raiffeisen, Funke and Mediaprint

The publisher of the Kurier is Kurier-Zeitungsverlag und Druckerei GmbH. Ownership is held through the Printmedienbeteiligungsgesellschaft, linked to the Raiffeisen banking group, together with the German Funke Mediengruppe, which holds 49 percent of the paper. Funke, formerly the WAZ Mediengruppe, also long held a stake in the Kronen Zeitung, which placed the Kurier in a distinctive position: editorially independent, but commercially intertwined with its largest competitor.

That intertwining is institutionalised in Mediaprint, the joint printing, marketing and sales company formed by the Kronen Zeitung and the Kurier. Since the late 1980s and 1990s the two papers have shared the Mediaprint infrastructure while maintaining separate newsrooms and editorial lines. Observers of Austrian media concentration regularly cite Mediaprint as a central fact of the market: the country's largest tabloid and one of its leading mid-market dailies are sold and printed by the same company. The Kurier's survival as a distinct editorial voice within that structure is one of the more notable features of Austrian press economics.

Editorial Line: Centrist, Liberal, Pro-European

Reference works describe the Kurier's political alignment as centrism, liberalism and pro-Europeanism. In the Austrian spectrum that places it between the conservative Die Presse and the social-liberal Der Standard among the non-tabloid nationals, and clearly apart from the Eurosceptic Kronen Zeitung. Its European coverage has been a particular strength: its long-serving Europe editor Margaretha Kopeinig won a government award in 2004 for reporting on security issues and wrote a book on Jean-Claude Juncker, and the paper has maintained serious Brussels coverage at a time when many regional papers reduced theirs.

The paper is edited from Vienna, with Martina Salomon listed as editor in recent reference entries, succeeding editors including Helmut Brandstätter, who took over in 2010, and Christoph Kotanko before him. Foreign reporting, including coverage of the Western Balkans by its foreign desk, has been part of the paper's quality claim. At the same time the Kurier remains a general popular daily, with accessible presentation, strong sport, service journalism and supplements, including a short-lived Kurier edition wissen knowledge supplement published in 2007. It is best classified, as Austrian media listings do, as an intermediate paper: neither broadsheet quality press nor tabloid, but a full national daily pitched at the broad middle of the market.

Circulation History

The Kurier's circulation history traces the rise and contraction of Austria's paid daily market with unusual clarity. From about 443,000 copies in the late 1980s, when it ranked as the eighteenth largest newspaper in the world, it sold 390,000 copies in 1993 as Austria's third best-selling paper. It sold 263,000 copies in 2001, 252,000 in 2002, again as the third best-selling title, and 254,000 copies in 2004. The fall then accelerated: 172,000 copies in 2005, 169,481 in 2007 and 158,469 in 2011, before the modern figures of about 103,000 in 2023 and an ÖAK 2025 print run of about 98,048.

Those numbers should be read alongside reach research. In 2017 the Kurier's daily reach was recorded at 7.4 percent of the Austrian population, behind the Kronen Zeitung, Heute, Kleine Zeitung and Österreich in raw audience but ahead of Die Presse. A newspaper that once sold more than 400,000 copies now operates at roughly a quarter of that sale, yet retains a national readership that most European mid-market papers would envy relative to population. The economics, however, are those of the whole Austrian industry: fewer print buyers, older loyal readers, and growth expected from digital subscriptions rather than from the newsstand.

Contents and Sections

A typical Kurier covers Austrian politics, world news, business and finance, culture, science and knowledge content, sport and regional news, with Vienna at its centre but with national distribution and regional reporting. Its Berliner format, larger than a tabloid and smaller than a broadsheet, suits that mixed mission: serious enough for extended political and cultural coverage, handy enough for commuters and for readers who take the paper at home by subscription.

The paper's cultural and feature writing, its interviews and its Sunday offering form part of its appeal to the educated middle-class readership it shares with the quality press. At the same time, its popular heritage from the Wiener Kurier period shows in clear headlines, explanatory journalism and a willingness to present news visually. That balance, popular presentation without tabloid campaigning, is the Kurier's editorial trademark and the reason media manuals routinely use it as the Austrian example of the mid-market daily.

Kurier.at and Digital Publishing

The paper's digital home is kurier.at, which carries the newsroom's reporting online with breaking news, live coverage, video and the paper's sections in digital form. Like other Austrian dailies, the Kurier has had to convert a print audience built over decades into registered and paying digital readers while competing with the free reach of krone.at, heute.at, oe24 and the public broadcaster ORF. Its centrist, explanatory brand is an asset in that contest, particularly for readers seeking Austrian political coverage without a strongly partisan frame.

Digital transition has also changed the paper's relationship to its Mediaprint partner. Print printing and distribution remain shared, while online the Kurier competes directly with krone.at for the same national audience. The coexistence of shared print infrastructure and separate digital competition captures the pragmatic economics of the small Austrian market, in which outright rivalry on every front would leave too few survivors to sustain professional newsrooms.

Role in Post-War Austrian Journalism

The Kurier's importance exceeds its present circulation. As the Wiener Kurier it was one of the occupation newspapers through which the United States introduced a new, more popular journalism to Austria after 1945, and researchers on Austrian media history argue that this early popularisation helps explain why strong tabloid and mid-market papers developed in Austria earlier than in much of continental Europe. Alumni of its newsroom, from Hans Dichand to Hugo Portisch and Gerd Bacher, went on to lead the Kronen Zeitung and the ORF, spreading the Kurier's influence across the whole media system.

The paper also illustrates the decline of the party press and the rise of independent, commercially owned dailies. Founded by an occupying power, bought by an Austrian publisher in 1954, and later owned by banking and German publishing interests, the Kurier belongs to no party and has maintained a centrist line through governments of every composition. In a country where newspapers were once the organs of political camps, that independence is a substantial part of its identity.

Competition and Market Position

Today the Kurier competes with the Kronen Zeitung for popular readers, with Der Standard and Die Presse for educated readers, with Heute and Österreich for younger readers, and with strong regional papers outside Vienna. Its recorded daily reach and its roughly 100,000-copy edition place it in the second tier by size, but in the first tier by influence: it is quoted internationally, read in government and business, and treated by media researchers as one of Austria's agenda-setting nationals.

Its challenges are equally clear: an ageing print base, the advertising strength of the free and digital tabloids, and the cost of national quality journalism on a sale of about 100,000 copies. Its assets are a trusted centrist brand, a Vienna base at the centre of Austrian politics, the Mediaprint cost structure and a digital audience that extends beyond its print footprint.

Essential Facts

The Kurier was founded as the Wiener Kurier by the United States forces in 1945 and re-established in 1954 by Ludwig Polsterer as the Neuer Kurier. It is a German-language daily published in Vienna in Berliner format by Kurier-Zeitungsverlag und Druckerei GmbH, owned through Raiffeisen-linked Printmedien Beteiligung together with the Funke Mediengruppe, which holds 49 percent. Its alignment is centrist, liberal and pro-European. Its circulation was about 103,000 copies in 2023, with an ÖAK 2025 print run of about 98,048.

For any directory of Austrian newspapers, the Kurier belongs among the essential national titles: historically the country's third best-selling daily, still a leading voice in Austrian politics and European reporting, and the clearest example in Austria of the independent mid-market newspaper between tabloid and broadsheet.