Ingrid Thornhair: ‘I think I’ve spent enough time in front of the cameras’

The Vorarlberg native, who succeeded current director and FM4 broadcaster Monica Eggensberger in her role, will need these management skills: “There is a major project to tackle in the first six months, moving broadcasters to Küniglberg and integrating ORF-Information into the multimedia editorial room. It will require An incredible amount of energy from all of us to create a smooth and elegant transition. This will be project number one. That’s why there will be a lot going on before January 1st” when the new ORF takes over.

In the ORF, but also by political actors outside it, it is followed by Argus eyes what happens with the information of the ORF, that is, also with the radio information, which has been attached to the General Director since Alexander and Rabitz. Thorner says there are cultural changes across the board. “We will invest a lot of brainpower. But I consider the radio’s most exciting task to be filling the multimedia editing room, of which there has been only a semi-finished building hitherto, with life. The media director and I will agree.”

Ingrid Thorner’s career at ORF has been full of twists and turns: She came to ORF in 1985 as a television presenter, and worked in the current service at the Lower Austria regional studio from 1986 to 1991. Then years followed as local policy editor on radio before the jump came to ‘ZiB’ 2″. Other stations followed – after a short, not entirely voluntary period in “ZiB 1” – from 2008 to 2016, the main moderator of the ORF’s discussion programs “At the Center” and “Round Table”, “Summer Talks” and much more. In 2017, she moved to ORFIII, which she formed as chief editor and unexpectedly became a springboard in the radio department.