Oldest daily in Austria soon only online

The Wiener Zeitung, Austria's oldest newspaper and one of the oldest in the world, will discontinue print publication in July and transition entirely online. The abolition of its main source of public funding, its monopoly on the publication of legal notices, has resulted in the end of its print publication.

Depending on the funds available, the Austrian state-owned daily will maintain a minimum of ten print publications per year. Wiener Zeitung, which has been published in Vienna since 1703, will print its final issue on June 30 after more than 300 years, according to Le Monde.

The Wiener Zeitung, founded in 1703 as Wiennerisches Diarium and later renamed Wiener Zeitung in 1780, was nationalised by Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria in 1857, becoming the country's official gazette. Even though its paid circulation had dropped below 8,000 copies, the daily remained a pillar of the Viennese media landscape.

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