Konrad Mitschka to open the 9th Eurovisions International Conference

The 9th Eurovisions International Conference will be opened by Konrad Mitschka, a long-standing expert on public value in public service media. Working at the Public Value Competence Centre of the ORF, he is responsible, among other things, for the organisation’s Public Value Report and has been closely involved in shaping the discourse around the societal role of broadcasting.

Konrad Mitschka, Public Value Competence Center, ORF

Alongside his work at ORF, Mitschka has published several books and contributions, including Radiomomente, Wandelwörter and Ein Jahrhundert Österreich, reflecting his broader engagement with media, language and cultural developments.

His connection to the Eurovision Song Contest and the topic of public value goes back more than a decade. In 2015, when Vienna hosted the 60th Eurovision Song Contest, Mitschka organised a conference dedicated to public value in the context of the ESC. The discussions were documented in the volume TEXTE 14, which remains a useful reference point for considering the contest beyond entertainment.

Mitschka is also known to the Eurovisions community. He contributed to the Eurovisions Conference in Turin in 2022, where he appeared alongside EBU Director of Media and Deputy Director General Jean Philip De Tender and engaged in discussions on current developments in the Eurovision Song Contest.

In Vienna, he will open the conference with his keynote “ESC: Public Value Moments”. His talk will set the tone for the event by focusing on how public value can be identified and discussed within the Eurovision Song Contest, providing a practical entry point into this year’s theme, “Celebrating 70 Years of Public Value”.