In an unprecedented shake-up of Hungarian media that marks a radical break from 16 years of tight state control, the country’s leading public television and radio outlets have suspended regular news operations as part of a sweeping push to build an independent, trusted public media ecosystem. On Tuesday, viewers tuning into MTVA’s flagship public channel M1 were met with a striking black screen bearing a blunt, unflinching white text apology: “Public media should not lie. We are sorry for doing it for so long.” The message continued, laying out the roadmap for the sector’s overhaul: “Public media now will be reformed so it will be independent and trustworthy. Our news programme is currently suspended. Stay tuned!”
Alongside the television suspension, Hungary’s primary public radio outlet Kossuth Radio — which for decades delivered state-aligned news, current affairs, sports, and cultural coverage — has been taken off its regular frequencies. Per Agence France-Presse reports, the signal now carries classical music from Bartok Radio instead, while the official websites for both M1 and Kossuth remained offline through Tuesday afternoon.
The dramatic restructuring fulfills a core campaign pledge from new Prime Minister Péter Magyar, who swept into power in an April landslide election after breaking from former Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s long-ruling Fidesz party. Magyar, who ran on a platform of “regime change” after years of criticizing Orbán’s tight grip on Hungarian public life, framed Tuesday’s developments as nothing less than a historic turning point for Hungarian democracy. “They lied at night, they lied during the day, they lied on every wavelength. That is now over,” he said, calling the suspension the definitive end of state-run propaganda on public media platforms.
Orbán, who was ousted from office after 16 consecutive years in power, has pushed back hard against the restructuring, denouncing the move in a Tuesday Facebook post as “another example of Tisza [Hungary’s ruling party] tyranny.” He urged his supporters to abandon public media and switch their viewing to Fidesz-affiliated private outlet Hir TV. The shake-up has already spilled over into private media aligned with the former government: commercial broadcaster TV2, which maintained close ties to Fidesz during Orbán’s tenure, has already seen its top news anchors and news director step down since Magyar took office.
Magyar has long argued that nearly all major Hungarian media was effectively commandeered by allies of Orbán during his administration, claiming that state outlets repeatedly ran false smears against him and blocked him from appearing on public television from September 2024 onward. Just days after his election victory, Magyar made his first appearance on both Kossuth Radio and M1, where he explicitly confirmed his plan to pause existing news operations, assemble a completely new independent editorial team, and establish a new broadcast oversight authority to guarantee long-term press freedom.
In a statement released Tuesday, MTVA — the public media body that manages M1 — clarified that the channel would gradually resume operations in a new, ad-free format focused on non-news content initially, with reformed news bulletins to be phased in once the new independent editorial structure is fully in place. The move has drawn widespread attention across Europe as a key test of Hungary’s democratic shift after more than a decade and a half of centralized government control over public information.