By Gergő Zsiborás, Editor-in-Chief of Forbes Hungary
Hungary’s public news channel M1 temporarily suspended its news broadcasts on Tuesday afternoon after the country’s new leadership began implementing one of its flagship campaign promises: restructuring the state media system to create what it describes as an independent and credible public broadcaster.
Shortly after 4 p.m. local time, M1 interrupted its regular programming with the following message:
“Public media cannot lie. We apologize for having done so for many years. Public media is now being transformed to become independent and credible in the future. News services are temporarily suspended. Please stay with us.”
The same message also appeared on the website of hirado.hu, the online news portal operated by Hungary’s public broadcaster.
The move follows the appointment of an interim management team tasked with overseeing the transformation of the country’s public media. The government, led by Prime Minister Peter Magyar, had pledged during its election campaign that it would suspend state news operations until conditions for an independent public service newsroom could be established.
The restructuring began immediately on Tuesday. Several well-known figures from Hungary’s state television were dismissed, including Attila Császár, one of M1’s best-known political correspondents, who was escorted out of the broadcaster’s headquarters by security personnel. Zsolt Németh, M1’s news director—widely known by the nickname “Pitbull”—was also removed from his position.
The interim leadership includes Zsófia Mészáros, who will oversee the online division; Balázs Bodacz as acting head of news; György Kerényi in charge of Kossuth Radio; Péter Koltai leading the CEO’s office; and Sára Teszáry heading communications and serving as spokesperson during the transition.
Prime Minister Peter Magyar described the development as “a historic day” in a Facebook post.
“Today marks the end of propaganda broadcasts on Hungary’s public media platforms. They lied by day, they lied by night, they lied on every frequency. That ends today.”
The suspension of M1’s news programming marks one of the most symbolic and immediate institutional changes undertaken by Hungary’s new government since taking office, as it begins dismantling media structures that had been widely criticized by international press freedom organizations and the European Union for lacking editorial independence. The government has not yet announced when regular news broadcasts will resume.