Hungarian Media Monitor

Outgoing editorial staff of Hungary’s public media say that management is outsourcing production to external contractors to compensate for the lack of internal staff, according to Vasárnapi Hírek. Hungary's public media management company, the MTVA, has laid off around 1,000 public media staff since 2011, claiming the cuts are necessary to trim bloated budget costs. The paper reported that some of the outside contracts will go to a production company owned by Csaba Belénessy, the former head of Hungary’s public media news agency, MTI, who was appointed to run MTI during the public media’s early restructuring following the passage of the 2010 media laws.

Hungary has developed a “three-layered” media system in which the news is provided by three main sources: state-influenced TV and radio stations, a disappearing print sector, and freely distributed online media, human rights activist and former dissident Miklós Haraszti said at the opening of a conference on the Hungarian media on November 15.