Radio tenders

The Council issued on its website on Thursday the invitation to tender for the community use of the regional frequency Budapest 95.3 MHz. Tenders can be submitted on 9 March. The Council completed the formal evaluation of the tender submitted for the commercial use of the local radio media service Pápa 95.7 MHz, and requested the submission of missing information from the only tenderer, Pápai Platán Nonprofit Kft.

Media supervisory decisions

The Media Council does not initiate a procedure based on citizen complaints objecting to a December episode of Masked Singer (Álarcos énekes), broadcast on RTL Klub. The Council established that the programme should not have been assigned a higher age limit rating (16 instead of 12), because it did not contain explicit sexual references.

The board does not initiate a procedure either based on a citizen complaint concerned about a November episode of Bayer Show, in which the presenter expressed his – according to the citizen – disparaging opinions about Hungarian journalists and politicians. Offensive and degrading statements about journalists and politicians might be the reason for the use of individual judicial protection, however, in this case, there were no more serious offences committed that would require official action protecting the public interest, thus the Media Council does not initiate a procedure. Nevertheless, the Media Council stated that this decision does not mean that the board approves of offensive statements made during the media service providers’ programmes, what is more, the Council believes that the language of public discourse getting more and more vulgar is highly detrimental.

The Media Council dismissed the balance request received in connection with two December broadcasts of the television channel M1’s News programme, because according to the Media Act, the Council can only examine balance in particular cases where the offered opinion substantially differs from the published information. Media governance has no control over the content or editing particularities of a programme; the authority cannot intervene.

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