It focuses on classical music and opera, jazz, documentaries and features, news, radio plays and dramas, Kabarett, quiz shows, and discussions.

Two years later, a legal regulation of a nonpartisan broadcasting was passed by the National Council parliament, entailing a relaunch of the ORF radio stations.

Ö1 was designated to comply with the public educational mandate (Bildungsauftrag) and to offer a broadly cultural program for an artistically inclined audience.

The current station identification was composed by the jazz musician Werner Pirchner in 1994, the slogan Ö1 gehört gehört—a pun on "to be heard" in German conforming with "ought to"—was created by the author Wolf Haas.

Ö1 internet radio can also be listened to live on the ORF website through streaming audio, the programmes can also be heard for a week after broadcast at no charge.