Hungary’s public TV M1 suspends news, issues apology

Hungary’s flagship public television channel, M1, went dark on Tuesday, July 7, suspending all news programming and displaying an on-screen apology for years of what its new interim leadership called political distortion and propaganda. The unprecedented move, which also affected the main Kossuth Rádió station, marks the most dramatic step yet in Prime Minister Péter Magyar’s campaign to dismantle the media structures built during former Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s 16-year rule.

The black screen on M1 carried a message stating, “Public media must not lie. We apologize for having done so for many years.” It announced that public media is now undergoing transformation to become independent and credible, with news services temporarily suspended. Kossuth Rádió was replaced by classical music programming from Bartók Rádió. The changes do not affect the sports channel M4 Sport.

The shutdown occurred hours after András Horváth, an interim director-general appointed by parliament’s Culture Committee last week, arrived at the headquarters of MTVA, the public media umbrella group, with a transition team. Their mandate is to audit the organization, manage its institutional transition,...