A total of HUF 45.7 million for radio drama series and online content

Grants totaling HUF 38.7 million were allocated for the plans of fifteen radio drama series through this year’s Miklós Cserés tender of the Hungarian Media Patronage Program. Zsigmond Móricz’s novel Relations as well as István Örkény’s unfinished novel Babik will be adapted into radio dramas along with an adaptation of Magda Szabó’s radio drama The Surgeon of Halle. The works will treat subjects such as the martyrdom of Count Lajos Batthyány as well as the arrest and prosecution of István Bibó. The youngest generations can enjoy works such as Tales from the Four-Square Round Forest, the Princess’ Moustache, Rumini on Colony of Rime, Ida and the Golden Fleece and Witch on a Broomstick. The series of works entitled Márai, Gaál and Schwirián at War, set between 1944 and 1948, focuses on three personal stories. In the adaptation of the novel Hara-kiri, the young writer searches the boundaries between reality and imagination, whilst the plot of Couch, or the hand-double of Chernenko focuses on two elderly men with entirely different life experiences who meet at a hospital and it transpires that they are both bitterly disappointed in the realization of their beliefs. A radio drama is also set to be made on a literary treatment of the life of Ferenc Schwartzer, founder of the first private mental asylum and a concert of Haydn taking place at the Eszterházi palace.

Seven applicants received grants totaling HUF seven million in the final round of the patronage program’s latest Neumann János tender supporting the production of online content. Two new, five-part online series will be available through the echotv.hu website: one of them uses the portraits of King Matthias to present the former monarch, whilst the other focuses on famous and lesser-known public statues and the individuals they depict. A three-part series will be produced on the life work of composer Frigyes Hidas for the makotv.hu website. The Tiltott kastélyok (Forbidden Castles) series is set to continue: just as the former episodes, the segment on the Teleki castle of Marosújvár will be available through the magyaridok.hu website. A three-part video series will deal with the rehabilitation of the blind on the zuglotv.hu website: the films deal with processing the trauma of the loss of eyesight and details its various phases through its three characters. Another six episodes will be produced on parish churches for the third season of Treasures of the Szombathely Diocese on sztv.hu. A forthcoming series on a38.hu will present various natural science processes with an innovative dramaturgical treatment, in which the video will offer users choices at various junctions of the video to familiarize the subdivisions of the subject in question.

Radio-related decisions

The Media Council reviewed the 2017 fulfillment of radio music programming quotas and determined violations in the case of seven different media service providers, imposing fines ranging from HUF 18 to 50 thousand. Pursuant to the Media Act, at least 35 percent of the annual music programming of radios most consist of Hungarian music with 25 percent of said music covering works no older than five years.

Local commercial radio FM7 100.7 from Eger and the Budapest regional community Retro Rádió aired less spoken word content, Hungarian music and public service programs and programs to facilitate local community life than agreed upon in their public contracts and required by law, whilst FM7 100.7 also aired fewer news programs and used an inappropriate audio logo. The Media Council imposed a fine of HUF 40 thousand on the media service provider of the station in Eger and a fine of HUF 140 thousand on Retro Rádió Kft.

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

The board will publish the invitation to tender for the Zalaegerszeg 88.9 MHz local commercial radio frequency on Friday. Tenders can be submitted to the Authority until 5 July.