Western Saloon
Günther Schifter went on to introduce another feature of the American musical landscape to a broad Austrian listenership in the 1970s, when he began presenting the country and western programme Western Saloon on ORF's Ö3 station.
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Western Saloon subsequently served as the model for the television programme of the same name, and Schifter's standard greeting “Howdy!” became his trademark.
Most Austrians first came into contact with country and western music after the Second World War, during the American occupation. The genre, also known as “hillbilly”, was extremely popular in the United States, and was a staple of the programming broadcast by the Blue Danube Network (BDN), a station for US servicemen. American bands played country and western in soldiers' clubs, and many Austrian groups went on to follow their example.
