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In June 2007 the Parliament of Hungary adopted two acts relevant to media regulation. This included Act LXVII of 2007 introducing a series of amendments to Act I of 1996 on Radio and Television Broadcasting (Broadcasting Act). The aim of these amendments is exclusively to bring the Broadcasting Act into line with EC regulation related to broadcasting and consumer protection. The amendments concern mainly the rules of jurisdiction and the procedure of the Országos Rádió és Televízió Testület (National Radio and Television Commission - ORTT). They are mainly of a technical nature. While Act LXVII...

The rules of Act I of 1996 on Radio and Television Broadcasting (Broadcasting Act) governing the election of the members of the Országos Rádió és Televízió Testület (National Radio and Television Commission - ORTT) have been the subject of complaints submitted to the Constitutional Court on several occasions. Complaints have also been filed with regard to the unique regulation of the legal relationship between terrestrial broadcasters and the media authority. In this respect it shall be noted that, unlike in most European countries, the basis of this relationship is not a licence as issued by the...

The Constitutional Court examined the corresponding provisions of Act I. of 1996 on Radio and Television Broadcasting (Broadcasting Act) and several other instruments following the appeal of the two national commercial television broadcasters, two satellite news channels and the Hungarian Federation of Journalists. According to the Broadcasting Act, the plenary sessions of the Parliament, the public Parliamentary committee hearings and, to a certain extent, the meetings of the Parliamentary committees shall be broadcast via a closed circuit network operated by the Office of the Parliament. This...

Via its decision of 7 March 2007 the Government adopted the Hungarian National Strategy for Digital Switchover and decided to take the regulatory measures necessary for its implementation. The first version of the strategy was published in early October 2006 as a draft (see IRIS 2006-10: 14). This was followed by two months of public consultation (see IRIS 2007-1: 11). The Prime Minister’s Office finalised the strategy in line with the outcome of the consultation, which was transposed into an official policy document, now forming an appendix to the Government’s decision. On the basis of the decision...

The European Commission has decided to refer Hungary to the European Court of Justice for failing to abolish the provision of the Media Act preventing cable TV operators from providing cable TV services to more than one third of the Hungarian population. The national legislation at issue is obstructing further consolidation of the cable TV sector in Hungary, which would stimulate investment and the provision of better broadband services including “triple play” services (voice telephony, broadband internet access and cable TV distribution) by the operators concerned who are in competition with Magyar...