Foreword by the President

This is the third edition of the NMHH’s annual media market report, which has become an important data-driven support tool for our decision making process. Year after year, the publication provides an overview to media and communications service providers and consumers interested in our work about the main market trends and strategic challenges primarily guiding the Authority’s activities.

With regards to the latter, I would like to draw attention to the fact that while digital services are making our daily lives more and more convenient, we are no longer paying for them by simply buying various devices and subscriptions, but also by giving our attention, data, free time and privacy. There are also risks that families, our children and the digitally less savvy and vulnerable users need help to manage.

Another seemingly unstoppable phenomenon is the expansion of global platforms, which is driving concentration, homogeneity and economies of scale in all relevant sub-markets. In order to counterbalance the dominance of technology giants striving for a dominant role in the development of AI-based solutions as in the media and advertising market earlier, and to ensure proportionate public taxation, we continue to focus on supporting the operation of media that produce content for Hungarian communities while building on and enriching Hungarian culture.

Maintaining a healthy media market in a rapidly changing digital space needs constant attention: We need to strengthen the conditions for a media system in Hungary that preserves diversity and the widest possible offering, while ensuring that citizens’ freedom of opinion and information is not undiminished.

Continuous monitoring and analysis of sectoral and market developments is also essential, because regulation needs to be more flexible than ever in a rapidly changing technological and business environment. The rise of digital technology is increasingly blurring traditional sectoral boundaries, while, at the same time, significantly differentiating usage patterns across generations, accelerating innovation and increasing the diversity of business models, while threatening with higher market concentration.

The above phenomena also challenge the editorial work of the publication year after year, and as a result of the debate on the most viable and effective approach, this year’s report starts with three chapters reflecting the growing convergence between the services concerned:

• in the Audiovisual market chapter, we look at trends in the supply and consumption of motion picture content, from traditional TV to streaming platforms and video sharing to the motion picture market;
• in the Audio market section, we explore the diverse world of traditional and online radio, podcasts and music streaming service providers competing for listeners’ attention;
• and in the Press market chapter we look at both the supply and demand markets for print and online press products.

Separate chapters are devoted to the growing importance of online platforms in media consumption (including social media in particular), the advertising market and the diversity of news consumption. An important novelty is the chapter on the patterns of media consumption of Hungarians living beyond the borders of Hungary, and the chapter on the interactions between artificial intelligence and the media market.

This year, the publication is again supplemented by a number of shorter articles that complement the main chapters, each highlighting an interesting phenomenon or context and providing an insight into the complex processes of the digital media sector.

Encouraged by the very positive professional reception of the previous two Media Market Reports, I am pleased to offer you an even more substantial publication than ever before. I am doing so with the unchanged ambition to contribute to the professional dialogue on the domestic media market, to better understand and, where appropriate, to bring different points of view closer together, through our consistently data-driven approach and methodologically sound research.

Thank you for your kind attention and I hope you find the NMHH Media Market Report 2024 a useful and entertaining read.

Dr. András Koltay, President of the National Media and Infocommunications Authority