Hungary: Court ruling strengthens opposition club radio
Better prospects for the opposition-aligned Klubradio in Hungary: On Wednesday, the Budapest Court of Appeals overturned a decision by the media authority NMHH that had excluded Klubradio from the bidding process for the 95.3 MHz frequency in July of this year.
In an earlier trial in March, the court had already declared the allocation of the frequency to the Autoradio station in the previous year invalid because its application had shown formal errors. Klubradio had come second in that procedure. In accordance with the ruling from March, the NMHH should have awarded the frequency to the opposition station. Instead, however, the authority subsequently excluded Klubradio from the award procedure in July due to alleged formal errors.
The court overturned this decision on Wednesday. According to the ruling, the NMHH could not subsequently exclude an applicant whose application it had assessed as valid during the procedure itself.
Klubradio is the only opposition radio station in Hungary with a significant reach of up to 500,000 listeners. The NMHH media council is made up of loyal party supporters of the right-wing conservative Prime Minister Viktor Orban. At present, this body only extends Klubradio's broadcasting license for the 95.3 MHz frequency provisionally for two months at a time. The station is missing out on considerable advertising revenue due to the uncertain situation. (sda)
