They fired Andras Koltay, the president of the National Media and Infocommunications Authority(, "independent"), as well as other Media Council members, it's the top layer, tasked with licensing/regulation/oversight/.. of broadcasters.
They also fired Anita Altorjai(, and András P. Horváth), the head of Duna Média, Hungary's only public service broadcaster for radio, television and new media. It includes six TV channels and seven radio stations. So Zsolt Németh(, Media1 director, the main TV news channel), or Beatrix Siklósi(, Kossuth Radio director, the main radio news channel), were replaced by someone more in line with "democracy", "anti-disinformation", anti-Russia, pro-EU, etc, the usual.
At 1PM, the new interim public-media leadership was announced, then from 4PM to 8PM, Media1 stopped broadcasting its normal live output to display instead this :
Public media cannot lie.
We apologise, because for many long years we nevertheless did this.
Public media is now being transformed so that in the future it can be independent and credible.
The news service is temporarily suspended.
Stay with us.
News also disappeared from Hirado.hu
Kossuth Radio also stopped, and in its place listeners got Bartók Radio programming.
When Media1 broadcasted again at 8PM, it was to show the movie The Witness, an anti-stalinist satire, made to focus on the worst of communism while ignoring the best, the usual here as well.
Now « before publishing news and public content on Híradó.hu and online platforms, they must be approved by the appointed leader. The other programmes will not be published automatically, and they must also be approved by the designated content officer »(, source).
« Besides public media, the new administration has also targeted private outlets owned by Orbán-allied business people »(, source). There are also subventions, state advertising, and the impact of the reform of the Media Council which has a say on private medias as well.
If ~75% of the medias were pro-Fidesz, now it'll be the contrary, and we won't call it controlling the medias, just making them "normal", like us.
All of that is only unfair if you're pro-Orbán, anti-Orbán people here will find such assessment&decisions harsh but fair.
RTL was one of its main opponent in media, they're also very active in France and Germany.
V.Orbán created a Sovereignty Protection Office against western medias just like we(sterners) protect ourselves from non-western medias, or non-westerners protect themselves from western medias. When they do it it's a proof of authoritarianism, but when we do it it's a defence from disinformation.
Such foreign media interferences like RTL are nothing compared to the weight of the european sanctions in influencing the votes(, as well as other things, such as the end of the Erasmus program).
The new hungarian government has now unlocked €16.4 billions from the EU.