ServusTV

What is ServusTV?

ServusTV is a private Austrian television channel of the Red Bull group. The Kommunikationsbehörde Austria (KommAustria), in its decision KOA 2.135/10-003 of 30 December 2010, names the operator as ServusTV Fernsehgesellschaft m.b.H., registered under FN 131966 v at the Landesgericht Salzburg. It records that the company's sole shareholder was then Red Bull Media House GmbH, itself wholly owned by Red Bull GmbH.^[1]

The Euromedia Ownership Monitor's Austria report of December 2025, by Mariia Aleksevych and Josef Trappel of the University of Salzburg, places Servus TV in the Red Bull Media group and gives its main owners as “Family Yoovidhya (49%); Mark Mateschitz (49%)”.^[2] The monitor's percentages refer to the ownership it traced for the report; the regulator's 2010 decision records the direct shareholder at that date. Neither source was found to be dated closer to 26 September 2026.

The ORF's media research department describes ServusTV in its 2025 market-share report: “Das stärkste Mitbewerberangebot war 2025 Servus TV mit 4,7 % Marktanteil”.^[3] That is the ORF's wording about a competitor.

What does ServusTV cover?

KommAustria's 2010 decision, which licensed a separate programme for Germany, describes the programme's content as including coverage of “alpenländischen, nationalen und internationalen Sports”, Alpine, national and international sport.^[1] That describes the licensed programme at that date.

On 26 September 2026 the sport section of the ServusTV On platform named the UEFA Europa League, the UEFA Nations League, Formula 1 and MotoGP, with categories for football, motor sport, motorcycling, tennis, extreme sport, winter sport and cycling. Its description reads: “Kostenlose Livestreams bei ServusTV On Sport. Alles zu den Live-Übertragungen der UEFA Europa League, der Formel 1 und der MotoGP.”^[4] The page gives no rights terms or seasons, so none are reported here.

In April 2026 ServusTV issued a release announcing a joint World Cup campaign with the Österreichischer Fußball-Bund, the ORF and the Kronen Zeitung, in which it states that the four partners want to spark “eine positive WM-Euphorie”. It scheduled coverage of the initiative on its programme “Sport und Talk aus dem Hangar-7” on 27 April, a day after the ORF's “Sport am Sonntag” and the Sonntags-Krone were to report on it.^[5] The release is ServusTV's own.

How large is ServusTV's audience?

Television audiences in Austria are measured by AGTT Teletest, and the ORF's media research department publishes the annual market shares.^[3]

Its page for 2025 gives ServusTV 4.7 per cent of television viewing among viewers aged 12 and over, against 34.6 per cent for the ORF group, 10.8 per cent for ORF 1 and 20.8 per cent for ORF 2.^[3] Those are annual averages for all programming, not for sport alone, published by a competitor of the channel.

No separate audited figure for the ServusTV On streaming platform, or for any single sport broadcast on the channel, was retrieved.

Since when has ServusTV existed?

The regulator's record dates the licences. KommAustria's decision of 30 December 2010 describes the company as “Inhaberin einer lokalen Zulassung zur Veranstaltung von analogem terrestrischem Fernsehen” for Salzburg and its surroundings, under a decision of the Bundeskommunikationssenat of 1 October 2002, and of a licence for the satellite programme “Servus TV” under a KommAustria decision of 10 November 2008, amended in 2009 and 2010.^[1] The same decision granted a ten-year licence for the satellite programme “Servus TV Deutschland”.^[1]

No launch date for the channel was retrieved from its own pages, and the licence dates are not broadcast dates.

Why does ServusTV matter in Austria's sport?

ServusTV is a private channel whose sport pages list motor sport, UEFA club and national-team football and winter sport, and it had 4.7 per cent of Austrian television viewing in 2025 by the ORF's publication of Teletest data.^[3][4] It was one of four partners, with the football association, the ORF and the Kronen Zeitung, in the 2026 World Cup campaign it announced.^[5] As a licensed private broadcaster it falls under KommAustria, which, in the RTR's words, “reguliert und beaufsichtigt den Markt der Radio-, Fernseh- und vergleichbaren Online-Angebote in Österreich sowie den ORF und dessen Tochterfirmen”.^[6] The regulator's 2010 decision shows the licensing record that the channel's history rests on.^[1]

Its owners sit within a concentrated market, as a monitoring body describes it. The Media Pluralism Monitor's Austria 2026 page states: “Concentration in the audiovisual, radio and newspaper sectors is extremely high: the four largest players hold between 70 and 92% of the respective markets in terms of revenue and audience.”^[7] Reporters Without Borders, in its 2026 entry, states: “With just a dozen major outlets, the media market is small and very concentrated.”^[8] Those are the two bodies' characterisations.