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On 30 September 2009 a new Code of Advertising Ethics entered into force in Hungary. The self-regulatory instrument was signed on 16 September 2009 by 26 professional associations covering practically the entire national advertising industry. The first Hungarian Code of Advertising Ethics was adopted by the market players in 1981 as the first of such codes in the former Eastern Bloc. Since then the code has been revised several times. However, the last revision took place in 2005 and the Hungarian advertising scene has been the subject of several changes during the past four years (IRIS 2005-10:...

On 2 September 2009 Országos Rádió és Televízió Testület (the National Radio and Television Commission, ORTT) decided to qualify TV programmes consisting of games (for prizes) where viewers can take part via telephone as teleshopping. The basis of the decision was judgment C-195/06 of the European Court of Justice. In this judgment (see IRIS 2008-1: 4) the Court inter alia expressed that “a broadcast or part of a broadcast during which a TV broadcaster offers viewers the opportunity to participate in a prize game by means of immediately dialling a premium rate telephone number, and thus in return...

On 30 June 2009 the Hungarian Constitutional Court declared a recent amendment to Act I of 1996 on Radio and Television Broadcasting (Broadcasting Act) incompatible with the Constitution. The amendment was adopted by the Parliament on 8 December 2008. The new rules would have made possible the renewal of broadcasting licences without tendering in the case of analogue programme services, given that the broadcaster concerned undertakes obligations to contribute to the process of the digital switchover. The term of such renewal was determined to be a maximum of five years, but it may not exceed the...

In May 2009, the Court confirmed once more the applicability of the right to freedom of expression and information guaranteed under Article 10 of the Convention to matters of access to official documents. The case concerns the attempt by a historian, Mr. János Kenedi, to have access to certain documents deposited at the Ministry of the Interior regarding the functioning of the State Security Services in Hungary in the 1960s. Mr Kenedi, who had previously published several books on the functioning of secret services in totalitarian regimes, complained to the European Court about the Hungarian...

Országos Rádió és Televízió Testület (National Radio and Television Commission - ORTT) has decided to launch the tender process for the right to broadcast on the two national analogue radio networks. Currently these networks are used by two commercial radio companies (the Danubius Rádió Műsorszolgáltató Zrt. and the Sláger Rádió Zrt.). Both companies won their licences to provide their respective national radio programme services in 1997 by concluding a broadcasting contract with the ORTT. The original term of these contracts was 7 years. Later this term was extended by 5 more years. The extended...