HUF 760 million for non-fiction, animation and documentary films in the upcoming year

Published: 8 December 2017

The Media Council of the National Media and Infocommunications Authority (NMHH) announced three film tenders in the framework of the Hungarian Media Patronage Program in the total value of HUF 760 million. According to the authority’s survey, viewers are faced with increasingly frequent product placements on the two national commercial television channels.

Submissions are accepted until mid-January for the first round of next year’s three film grants

The Media Council announced the non-fiction, animation and documentary film grants of the Hungarian Media Patronage Program for 2018, for which they allocated a total of HUF 760 million. The board will announce the winners on three occasions in the following year, in relation to the three rounds of tenders. The submission deadline for the first round of all three tendering procedures is 12 noon on 18 January, while the subsequently elaborated film treatments are to be submitted in June and in the early autumn period. As in the past, tenders are also accepted from beyond the state borders and in fact, ten percent of the HUF 210 million worth of funds for the non-fiction and documentary film categories is to be devoted solely to tenders received from outside of the country.

Synopses of standalone or multi-part nature films, scientific, art, historical and cultural film works can be submitted for the Ágoston Kollányi tender for grants on the production of non-fiction films with a budget of HUF 250 million. Tenders for grants can be submitted for the Judit Ember tender, with a total budget of HUF 330 million, for documentaries of 25 or 50 minutes in length and documentary series of no more than two episodes. Animation films no longer than 25 minutes in length or 15 minutes per episode can be submitted for funds in the total value of HUF 180 million through the Gyula Macskássy tender announced for the production of animation films.

Significant increase of product placement in the first six months of 2017

The board approved the study on the product placement of national commercial television programs in the first six months of 2017. NMHH surveyed approximately 3,500 programs aired on channels RTL Klub and TV2. The study again focused on the self-produced shows of the media service providers in which they identified a total of 19,162 instances of product placement over the six-month period, which is nearly 75 percent higher than in the same period of 2016. The number of displayed brands also increased by nearly 75 percent: viewers were exposed to 2,953 brands in the first half-year of 2017, with only 1,700 brands displayed in the previous year. This year, RTL Klub more than doubled last year’s 6,378 product placements, as approximately 14 thousand such messages were aired on the channel in the first six months. In the case of TV2, they registered a slight increase in product placement, from 4,609 to 5,204. Whilst in the past it was typical for media service providers to almost always display the captions which called attention to the product placement in all cases, in the first six months of the year they used such announcements more consistently, followed by actual placement. Additionally, the survey registered the failure of such reminders in 270 cases.

Major brands were less dominant in the field of product placement than in the case of classic advertisement slots. 88 percent of the nearly 3,000 identified goods were displayed fewer than ten times, and only once in 978 cases, therefore, product placement shows a more diverse supply. This year, the most frequently displayed brand was again Adidas, with a total of 332 instances, closely followed by Nike (321) and Fa Men taking the imaginary third place (208).

Thematic infotainment programs featured 62.4 percent of all advertisements—nearly 12 thousand instances—therefore, this program type is clearly the greatest outlet of product placement. The most product placement (3,299) was aired in RTL Klub’s program entitled Fókusz, which was nearly double the amount of last year’s number (1,790).

The full study is available on the NMHH website.

Radio-related decisions

The Media Council rejected the request of Advenio Műsorszolgáltató Zrt. for the board to suspend its national commercial radio frequency tendering procedures, as there are no statutory grounds to suspend the procedures. The judicial review is underway in relation to the tendering procedure and the Authority can only provide more information on the matter once it has been concluded.

The Media Council imposed a fine of HUF thirty thousand on the service provider of the Európa Rádió community radio station of Miskolc during the course of a regulatory inspection. The radio aired fewer programs dealing with local community life which facilitate day-to-day activities and more reruns than stated in their public contract, moreover, this was not the first such violation over the past one year. The Vörösmarty Rádió community radio station of Székesfehérvár also aired too many reruns, therefore the council warned the radio’s media service provider to comply with the regulations.

When imposing a fine, the Media Council always determines the form and extent of the fine with due consideration to all the circumstances of the specific case and employing the principle of progressiveness and proportionality.