Public relations very pleased that the Federal Ministry of Justice has now taken steps in this direction and has established a working group, where the relevant Federal Ministries as well as business and industry are also participating. Naturally the AOB will also be playing an active role. 3. Public relations It is particularly important for the AOB to inform the public about its responsibilities and activities on an ongoing basis. Therefore, public relations work was again expanded in this past year. For example, the AOB presented the reports it prepared in 2014 to the National Council and the Diets of Vienna, Lower Austria and Salzburg at press conferences. The AOB also expanded its very good cooperation with journalists by way of press releases, interviews and background discussions. Public relations work expanded The AOB informed representatives of the media regularly and comprehensively about its work, for example, investigative proceedings, comments on draft legislation and suggestions to legislators. The AOB also reported on current events and activities that the public is interested in, e.g. the opening of the visitor centre VA.TRIUM. It also commented publicly on relevant topics, including on the occasion of the International Human Rights Day, the Universal Children’s Day and the International Day of Persons with Disabilities. As a result of its expanded public relations work, the media presence of the AOB has continued to rise. In 2014, there were 1,700 reports about the work of the Austrian Ombudsman Board in Austrian print media and on Austrian public radio and television channels. In addition to the expanded public relations work in the past year, it is particularly the television programme BürgerAnwalt (“Advocate for the People”), broadcasted by the Austrian public television channel ORF, that offers an important platform for the issues handled by the AOB and which has enabled the AOB to have wide-ranging impact during the past ten years, by showing the most important issues handled by the AOB. Every week as many as 440,000 viewers follow the discussions in the studio, where complainants, representatives of government agencies and the ombudspersons have the opportunity to voice their opinions and discuss real-life problems in a solution-oriented way. After the broadcast, every programme is available for online viewing for a week on the ORF TVthek website. TV programme with wide-range impact 17