At the Media Council’s request, the Luxembourg partner authority, ALIA imposed a fine of EUR 5,000—equivalent to nearly HUF 1.5 million—due to the violation of the provisions on the protection of minors and human dignity on the media service provider of RTL II for the 15 January 2019 broadcast of the programme Showder Klub. The programme featured vulgar language along with multiple jokes of sexual content or referring to sexual orientation, therefore the programme should have been classified with an age rating of suitable over 16 instead of 12 years of age. Furthermore, the partner authority admonished the service provider for the 11 November 2018 broadcast of the programme BeleValóVilág powered by Big Brother due to vulgar language, which should have also been issued with an age rating of over 16 instead of 12 years of age—according to the information provided by ALIA to the Hungarian authority.

At this week’s session, the Media Council authorised Karc FM Média Kft. to begin community broadcasting on the Kecskemét 97.7 MHz frequency with a delay of two months, on 29 December at the latest.

The Media Council imposed a fine of HUF 40 thousand on the service provider of Mustár Rádió, broadcasting in the region of Nyíregyháza, for airing less spoken word content, Hungarian music and programmes dealing with and assisting local public and everyday life and more reruns than stipulated in its contractual commitments during a reviewed programming week in July.

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

The full agenda of the Media Council’s weekly sessions can be found on the Board’s website, along with the minutes of the meetings and all decisions taken; the latest decisions will be published after the necessary validation and administration period.