Whether solo artist or band, newcomer or experienced artist – the Austrian music show HERZ VON ÖSTERREICH offers all talented musicians a stage, the only requirement: it has to be Austrian music.

In January 2014, PULS4 launched the search for the most talented Austrian musicians with HERZ VON ÖSTERREICH and since February 28, it has been clear: David Blabensteiner has conquered the HERZ VON ÖSTERREICH! The Lower Austrian was able to win over the audience in the big heartbeat final and wins an advertising campaign worth a total of 250,000 euros as well as performances during the “Best of Austria Tour 2014” with Austropop greats such as Rainhard Fendrich, Die Seer and Wolfgang Ambros.

26-year-old David Blabensteiner wowed the Austrian public with his own composition “Ollas was i bin”. With the three state hearts of Lower Austria, Vienna and Tyrol, he came out on top against Johannes Spanner from Styria (2nd place) and Harald Baumgartner from Upper Austria (3rd place), who also secured advertising campaigns worth 150,000 euros and 100,000 euros respectively.

Regardless of the three winners, all the final acts had the chance to be selected by Andreas Gabalier to go on tour with him. The singer did not take the decision lightly and ultimately chose the group 13pluxx.

64 Austrian acts from different genres made it to one of the eight qualifying shows and battled it out for a place in the grand Herzschlag final. The jury led by Stefanie Werger, DJ Ötzi and Lukas Plöchl selected three artists at the end of each qualifying show, for whom viewers could then cast their votes over the course of a week. In the spirit of Austria-wide equality, the winner was not the person with the most total votes, but the one with the most “Bundesland hearts”. A “Bundeslandherz” was awarded if a musician received the most votes in the respective federal state. Johannes Spanner, Tagträumer, David Blabensteiner, Julia Buchner, Horst, Harald Baumgartner, 13pluXX and Natalie Hozner competed in the grand live final for the favor of the viewers, who were able to decide via live voting which participant would win the HEART OF AUSTRIA.

The format was moderated by the PULS 4 moderation team Johanna Setzer and Norbert Oberhauser, while Silvia Schneider kept reporting back from the election center with the interim voting results for each federal state.