State Broadcaster M1 Suspends News Programming for 'Trustworthy and Independent' Overhaul

At 16:00 CEST on July 7, Hungary's flagship public channel M1 suspended regular programming and displayed an on-screen apology: 'Public service media cannot lie. We apologise for doing this for many years nonetheless.' The blackout marked the start of a public-media overhaul promised by PM Péter Magyar during the campaign, targeting what he called 16 years of Orbán-era 'propaganda' at MTVA, the state broadcaster whose newsroom had been a pillar of Fidesz's information dominance alongside the privately-controlled but government-aligned KESMA media conglomerate. Programming resumed at 19:56 — a date reference to the 1956 anti-Soviet uprising — as a temporary M3-style archive channel airing classic Hungarian film and television while editors and journalists were dismissed and news operations rebuilt. MTVA and the Duna Media Service Provider said news broadcasting would gradually resume on M1, public radio, and digital platforms over the following weeks; partial news programming had returned by mid-July, though uncertainty over staffing and editorial direction lingered.