Hungarian Media Monitor

The top manager of Hungary’s public media discussed staff cuts and charges of state censorship in an interview in pro-government newspaper Heti Válasz.

István Böröcz, the CEO of the Media Services and Asset Management Fund (MTVA), said that staff restructuring would be completed by the fall of 2013. As many as 900 public media workers were laid off in two waves of firings, in the summer and autumn of 2011. The third wave of dismissals from Hungary’s public media, which began in December 2012, is expected to involve 195 workers, mostly production staff and workers aged 50 or older.

Members of the Hungarian government and the ruling Fidesz party together made about 62.3 percent of the appearances on major news broadcast coverage of the government and Parliament in December, and Prime Minister Viktor Orbán received 5,409 minutes of speaking time, about seven times more than any other politician, according to the monthly analysis of news coverage by the Media Authority (NMHH), published on January 16.