Screengrab of mediaworks.hu
BUDAPEST, Hungary: The creation in Hungary of a giant, pro-government media conglomerate will not have to be scrutinized by media or competition authorities.
An order signed by Prime Minister Viktor Orban and published Wednesday in the official bulletin calls the merger affecting hundreds of broadcast, online and print publications of "national strategic importance," exempting it from competition rules.
Last week, 10 companies donated media outlets to a foundation which, by some counts, will control nearly 480 publications and whose operations will be run by Gabor Liszkay, a publisher known for his loyalty to Orban.
Numerous Hungarian and international journalist and media associations have expressed concerns about the effects the conglomerate may have on media pluralism and press freedoms.
The aim of the conglomerate, named the Central European Press and Media Foundation (CEPMF), is to develop "public discourse based on national values", said a statement by the foundation last Wednesday. The move is the latest upheaval in Hungarian media that has been transformed since Orban came into power in 2010.
The firebrand nationalist has turned the country's public media into a government propaganda organ while his allies have steadily bought up swathes of the private media sector, benefiting from lucrative state advertising revenue, critics say.
The deal merges those private companies under one umbrella group where they can come under "complete central control," according to Gabor Polyak, an analyst with Mertek Media Monitor.
"Such a concentration of media power in the hands of one entity is unprecedented in an EU member," Polyak told AFP Friday.
"To do this so openly is a message to both Hungarians and Europe, that the government believes it can get away with anything," he said.
Prior to the move the outlets had been owned by a raft of government-linked figures like Orban's hometown friend Lorinc Meszaros, secretive advisor Arpad Habony, and Austrian businessman Heinrich Pecina.
Now, the conglomerate of "donated" companies, to be run on a "non-profit" basis according to CEPMF, will be headed by Gabor Liszkay.
"The holding company symbolises right-wing unity, while the left-wing is falling apart," said a triumphant statement by Origo.hu, one of the websites in question, after the announcement.
Origo's transformation began in 2014 when the then-editor was sacked soon after the site published an expose alleging extravagant travel expenses by a government minister.
That prompted a mass walkout by staff who suspected political interference. The site's German owner Deutsche Telekom quickly offloaded the site to a media firm linked to Fidesz.
With the arrival of a new editorial team in 2016, Origo's content has openly lurched in a pro-government direction.
Since then its front pages have been dominated by hit pieces on Orban's favourite targets: opposition parties, migrants and the Hungarian-born US billionaire George Soros.
Last week, Hungary's competition authority’s concerns was to decide within a week if the transactions necessitate an anti-trust probe but will likely rely on the judgement of the media regulator NMHH, a body seen by critics as biased toward pro-government media.
Set up in 2010 as part of Orban's first overhaul of media structures, the NMHH last year blocked a deal between Germany's RTL Klub and the owner of an independent news-site as it would "threaten citizens' rights to a diversity of information sources".
But since the CEPMF announcement, the only statement the regulator has issued has been a criticism of bad behaviour by participants on a reality TV show.
According to investigative journalist Tamas Bodoky who runs the Atlatszo.hu investigative site, the latest media swoop "makes the state capture of Hungarian media more visible and transparent".
"Before we had to explain how different privately-owned media outlets controlled by the government are working together to praise it and discredit its critics like opposition politicians, NGOs and even journalists," said Bodoky.
The reorganisation comes days after a survey by the Median firm and Mertek showed that 73 percent of Hungarians thought that Fidesz had a dominating influence over media.
The lopsided media landscape and "restricted" access to information in Hungary was cited by OSCE election observers as part of an "adverse climate" that helped Orban win a third consecutive term as premier in April.Huge pro-government media conglomerate formed in Hungary
The Central European Press and Media Foundation's assets will include cable news channels, internet news portals, tabloid and sports newspapers and all of Hungary's county newspapers, several radio stations and numerous magazines, among others. Among the brands to be under its control are Hir TV, Echo TV, Origo.hu, Nemzeti Sport, Bors, Magyar Idok and Figyelo.
Most of the publications donated to the foundation were acquired or founded by allies of Prime Minister Viktor Orban in the past few years. Some of them turned from relatively independent outlets into unabashed supporters of the government, with copious state and government advertising. Since Orban's return to power in 2010, international studies consider media freedoms to have steadily declined in Hungary.
Agnes Urban, a media analyst at Budapest's Mertek Media Monitor, said that after the "unprecedented" move "it makes little sense to speak about freedom of the press in Hungary" because of the power the conglomerate will have.
"From now on, there will be total control over the right wing media close the government," Urban said. "These companies were competing with each other for state advertising ... but now the system will be much more centralized and it will be much cheaper to operate."
"The few remaining independent media companies will also find it much, much harder to operate, since they will be up against a single, huge competitor," Urban concluded.
Attila Toth-Szenesi, editor-in-chief of index.hu, which has seen it access to public information and state officials drastically reduced in recent years by the Orban government, said the consolidation of the right-wing media may help advertisers see more clearly where each media outlet belongs.
At the same time, he said, it would simplify having the same centrally-edited content in all the publications controlled by the foundation.
"We already saw this happen a couple of years ago when Lorinc Meszaros took over most of the county newspapers," Toth-Szenesi said. Meszaros, an Orban friend and former gas fitter who is now considered one of Hungary's richest people, was among those who donated their media portfolios.
The foundation, or CEMPF, said that one of its goals is the "help the survival of the Hungarian written press culture."
"In our conviction, this simultaneously serves the interest of readers and the representation of civic values," the foundation said.
In surveys on media freedom published annually by Freedom House, a Washington-based think tank, Hungary's score was 23 in 2010 and 44 this year, with zero the best score and 100 the worst. Since 2012, Freedom House has described Hungary's media status as "partly free."
The companies which joined the foundation donated their media outlets and publications for free, even though their joint estimated value was possibly $100 million (88 million euros) or more.
"The fact that such valuable firms were practically gifted to the foundation at the same time and in such an obviously coordinated way shows very well how the Orban system works," said Daniel Pal Renyi, a journalist specializing in media matters at Hungary's 444.hu news portal. "This demonstrates that the owners did not have real ownership rights, but were carrying out political tasks ... and ultimately it's the political will that gets its way."
