About profil

profil

profil is a weekly news magazine published in German in Vienna, Austria, and is widely described as the country's leading news magazine. It is often called the Austrian counterpart to the German magazine Der Spiegel, and in 2008 it was described as the most important Austrian news magazine. That comparison captures both its ambition and its place in Austrian public life: a relatively small editorial team producing a national magazine of politics, investigation and commentary for Austria's intelligentsia. The magazine is published by Profil Redaktion GmbH within the VGN Medien Holding, also known as Verlagsgruppe News, Austria's dominant magazine group. Its headquarters are in Vienna, in the federal state of Vienna, and its official website is profil.at. This profile sets out what can be verified about its founding, development, editorial character, notable journalism, ownership, circulation history and present position, and it states openly where published information is limited or dated.

Founding and early history

profil was founded by Oscar Bronner, the Austrian publisher and journalist born in Haifa in 1943 who also founded the business magazine trend and, later, the daily newspaper Der Standard. The first edition appeared as a monthly on 7 September 1970. Bronner had originally wanted to create a general-interest magazine in the mould of Der Spiegel or Time, at a time when no such magazine focused mainly on Austrian affairs. Contemporary accounts of the Austrian business press note that trend, launched shortly before, served in effect as a launching pad for profil, because a business monthly was cheaper to start and its success made the news magazine possible within about a year. Bronner financed his early ventures in difficult circumstances, and the magazines were aimed from the start at Austria's intelligentsia, readers who wanted independent reporting outside the party-dominated press that then characterised much of Austrian journalism.

The frequency changed in stages. From October 1972 profil appeared every two weeks, and from January 1974 it became a weekly, the rhythm it has kept since. In 1975 the business magazine ecco merged with profil. Bronner sold his majority stakes in profil and trend in 1974 and moved to New York, where he worked as a painter and sculptor for more than a decade before returning to Vienna to found Der Standard in 1988. The magazine he left behind continued under other ownership, but the founding imprint remained: profil, together with trend, is credited with introducing investigative journalism to Austria, with well-researched articles taking up issues that had not previously been questioned critically.

Editorial profile and sections

profil is organised in sections covering Austria, abroad, economy, society, science and culture. Issues also carry glosses, caricatures and letters to the editor. That structure reflects a classic news-magazine formula: domestic politics first, then international affairs, business, social trends, scientific developments and cultural coverage, framed by commentary and humour. In the mid-1980s the magazine was described as having an independent and liberal leaning, and in the 2000s as having a left-liberal political stance. Such labels are those of outside observers and reference works rather than a formal party affiliation, and profil has presented itself as independent. Its target readership has consistently been described as Austria's educated, politically interested public, the intelligentsia to whom Bronner's titles were addressed from the beginning.

Investigative journalism and the Waldheim revelations

The most famous episode in profil's history is its role in revealing the Nazi past of Kurt Waldheim, the former United Nations secretary-general who became president of Austria. It was profil that uncovered the story about Waldheim's Nazi connection during the controversial presidential campaign period of the mid-1980s, a revelation that had international consequences, including Waldheim's later placement on a United States watch list. The political editor associated with that work was Hubertus Czernin, who served as profil's political editor and uncovered the Waldheim story. The episode cemented profil's reputation for investigative journalism in Austria and is still the standard example cited when the magazine's influence is discussed. It also illustrated the magazine's willingness to pursue a story about a powerful national figure despite intense domestic controversy and polarisation.

Ownership and the VGN group

In 2001 profil became part of the publishing company News, the group built by brothers Wolfgang and Helmut Fellner. That year the News group took over profil and trend, a merger that concentrated Austria's leading political and economic news weeklies — News, Format, profil and trend — in one publishing house, alongside media magazines such as TV-Media and e-media and several lifestyle titles. The merger was unsuccessfully challenged by seven Austrian newspapers and drew scrutiny at European level, reflecting long-standing concern about concentration in the small Austrian media market. The group, now VGN Medien Holding, publishes profil from Vienna through Profil Redaktion GmbH, according to the batch record for this directory. Within the group, profil occupies the serious, investigative end of the portfolio, distinct from the more entertainment-led News and the business-focused trend, although all share the same corporate owner.

Editors and leadership

Christian Rainer succeeded Josef Votzi as publisher and editor-in-chief of profil in 1998 and held a central role for many years; reference accounts list the chief editorial staff in his era as including Sven Gächter, Stefan Janny and Herbert Lackner. Rainer is frequently quoted as the public voice of the magazine, including in international features on Vienna's media scene, where he pointed out that profil is produced by an agile team of about 25 journalists, compared with the 150 to 200 staff of its German counterparts. That contrast is part of the magazine's identity: a small newsroom expected to match the agenda-setting role of much larger German-language news magazines. Details of the current day-to-day editorial roster change over time and are best confirmed from the magazine's own imprint, since directory and reference sources are updated irregularly.

Circulation and market position

Verified circulation figures for profil are mostly historical. A figure of about 74,000 copies in 2010 is cited in directory summaries, and group-level accounts gave profil a market reach of about 9.4 percent around 2000, when News held 19.3 percent and Format 7.1 percent of the weekly market. Austrian magazine circulation in general has declined since the boom years of the 1980s and 1990s, as daily quality newspapers expanded their coverage and readers moved online, a pattern documented in studies of the Austrian business and news press. No recent audited figure is asserted in this profile, because the sources consulted do not provide a current, directly comparable ÖAK figure for profil alone. What can be stated with confidence is its qualitative position: reference works continue to rank it as Austria's most important news magazine, and its investigations and interviews are routinely cited by other Austrian and foreign media.

Vienna base and Austrian context

profil is based in Vienna, the capital and a federal state in its own right, where most of Austria's national media, government institutions and cultural organisations are concentrated. That location matters editorially: Austrian politics is highly centralised, and a Vienna newsroom has direct access to parliament, ministries, courts, universities and the headquarters of major companies. At the same time, studies of Austrian media note a historic tendency for national titles to focus on Vienna, something Der Standard addressed with regional offices; profil's sections on Austria are intended for a nationwide readership. The magazine appears in German, the language shared with the much larger German market, which both exposes Austrian magazines to competition from German titles and gives a successful Austrian magazine a potential readership across the German-speaking countries.

Digital presence

profil maintains an official website at profil.at, recorded in this directory as its official site. Like other Austrian magazines, it has had to adapt to the shift of readers and advertising online, raising print prices in periods when advertising dried up; international reporting on Vienna's media noted that profil and the weekly Falter had stable readership and that readers accepted higher issue and subscription prices. The magazine's small-team model, described by its own editor, depends on selling authority and trust rather than volume. Beyond that general picture, this profile does not assert specific digital traffic figures, paywall details or social-media counts, because the sources consulted do not verify them for profil in a dated, comparable form. Readers should consult profil.at directly for current subscription and digital offers.

Place in Austrian journalism

profil's significance is historical as well as current. Together with trend, it pioneered investigative journalism in Austria at a time when much of the press was close to political parties. Its Waldheim reporting changed Austrian public debate and the country's international image. Its survival as an independent-minded weekly inside a large commercial group is also notable: ownership by VGN places it alongside entertainment and lifestyle titles, yet its brand remains that of a serious news magazine for educated readers. Reference descriptions over five decades consistently return to the same points — founded by Bronner in 1970, weekly since 1974, sections from Austria to culture, and a reputation for investigation — which suggests a stable editorial identity despite changes in editors, owners and market conditions.

What is not known and limits of this profile

Some limits should be stated openly. Current audited circulation, current staff numbers beyond the editor's past description of about 25 journalists, and the present full editorial roster are not verified in the sources used here and are therefore not presented as facts. Political labels such as left-liberal are outside characterisations from particular periods, not a party affiliation. Circulation comparisons across decades use different measurement systems, including sold circulation and Media-Analyse reach, and should not be read as a single continuous series. Within those limits, the core record is solid: profil is a German-language weekly news magazine from Vienna, founded by Oscar Bronner with a first issue on 7 September 1970, weekly since January 1974, published within VGN, known for political reporting and investigative journalism, and frequently described as Austria's counterpart to Der Spiegel.