NMHH Media Council: Tender launched with a total value of HUF 420 million for the grants for local and regional television productions

Published: 23 March 2018

At its latest session, the Media Council of the National Media and Infocommunications Authority (NMHH) decided to provide grants for three film festivals and the immediate recording of one ad hoc event. The board also approved this year’s invitation to tender for the production of news, cultural and public infotainment programs of local and regional television stations. The board also settled a dispute between Domino TV Zrt. and Antenna Hungária Zrt. by establishing a communication contract. The latest regulatory report approved by the Council has revealed that advertisers increasingly prefer to promote their products with athletes.

Patronage program grants

In the tendering procedure of the Escher Károly Tender of the Hungarian Media Patronage Program for grants to support the immediate on-site filming of Hungarian-related ad hoc events, the Council provided a grant of HUF 1.7 million for the tender of director Flóra Chilton who will record the activities of experience-based therapeutic projects for highly disadvantaged children for her documentary entitled Életrevalók (Life Learning).

As part of the Patronage Program, the Media Council also announced this year’s tender for the production of regular news, cultural and public infotainment programs of local and regional television stations. Applications are accepted in four separate rounds for this year’s tender with a total allocation of HUF 420 million; 19 April is the application deadline for the first round. The support cap per applicant is HUF 60 thousand for public infotainment programs and HUF 40 thousand in the case of news and cultural infotainment programs, which cannot exceed two-thirds of the estimated total cost of the programs.

Grants for film festivals

The Media Council will provide a grant of HUF 4.6 million to support Hungary’s participation at the MIFA International Animated Film Festival and Market in Annecy, France. The film Sellők és rinocéroszok (Mermaids and Rhinos) – produced with the grant of the Patronage Program – will be featured in the official selection of the A-list film event taking place from 12 to 15 June, providing the animation film branch of the patronage program and numerous domestic animation studios with an opportunity to introduce themselves.

The board is also providing a grant of HUF two million for the first prize at the International Nature Film Festival of Gödöllő – The Blue Ribbon of Europe – as well as for the awards of the documentary and nature film categories dealing with the natural values of the Carpathian Basin. The festival will be hosted from 25 to 27 May.

A grant of HUF 800 thousand was provided for the first prize at the IV Festival of Cultural Films of Szatmárcseke. The theme of films entered for the competition hosted from 23 to 26 August will deal with “Local Hungarian Culture in the Carpathian Basin”.

The board has also decided to support the Mediawave International Film and Music Gathering. The board has offered a total of HUF one million for the award-winning films in the documentary and short film category at the three-day event commencing on 29 April.

Advertisers prefer to work with athletes on television

The Media Council has approved the report on new advertising spots aired by televisions in the second half year of 2017. The summary analyzed the programs of 34 television stations, which aired a total of 2,602 new advertisements on 1.2 million occasions, as opposed to 2,656 advertising spots aired on one million occasions in the similar period of 2016. This shows the continuation of the previously observed tendency of television stations airing fewer advertisements on more occasions. The greatest number of new advertisements – ever since the second half year period of 2014 – were aired in November. The previously observed decrease of five-second spots has come to a halt with a slightly higher number of such advertisements aired during the half-year period in question. Whilst their 10.5 percent share of 2013 decreased to 1.8 percent in 2016, last year this figured rose to 2.7 percent. Of the advertisements reviewed, 59.8 percent were related to services and 37.4 percent to products, while the most frequent advertisers were retailers (37.4 percent) and the leisure industry (14.7 percent).

The share of advertisements particularly targeting minors showed a rate of 5.3 percent, which exceeded the 5 percent rate of 2016, despite the fact that the child programming period of M2 – until 8 p.m. – in the second half of 2017 was free of advertisements. There was a sharp downturn – from 8.4 to 5.2 percent – in the share of advertisements featuring well-known figures. As opposed to previous practices, most of the famous figures featured in advertisements were from the field of sports and not the media or film industry.

The full report is available on the NMHH website.

Conclusion of legal disputes

The board successfully settled a legal dispute between Domino TV Zrt. and Antenna Hungária Zrt. The service provider of d1 TV of Budapest contacted the Council after the telecommunications provider failed to extend its communication contract with the service provider due to the fact that according to its own internal regulations, said contract would be automatically extended by one year. According to the Authority’s investigation, there were no legal grounds for the decision, therefore the Media Council has established a new contract between the parties in question.

Radio-related decisions

At the media service provider’s request, the Media Council has extended the entitlement of Mária Rádió Frekvencia Kft. on four separate frequencies: Celldömölk (92.5 MHz), Mór (92.9 MHz), Pápa (90.8 MHz) and Sárvár (95.2 MHz), thus extending its broadcasting rights until 12 July 2023.