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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...

In mid-November the Prime Minister’s Office ( Miniszterelnöki Hivatal ) closed the public consultation of the Hungarian National Strategy for Digital Switchover. The strategy itself was published in early October (see IRIS 2006-10: 14) and stakeholders were invited to submit their written comments at the same time. A related public hearing was also organised as part of the consultation process. During the consultation period the Prime Minister’s Office received 61 written contributions comprising 476 pages in total. Almost all the relevant stakeholders expressed their views. The attention paid...

On 4 October 2006 the Hungarian National Strategy for Digital Switchover has been published and submitted to public consultation. The elaboration of the national strategy was the consequence of the decision of the Government on the introduction of Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) of March2005 (see IRIS 2005-5: 16). The majority of the preparatory works has been carried out under theaegis of the Informatikai és Hírközlési Minisztérium (Ministry of Informatics and Telecommunications), that merged with the Gazdasági és Közlekedési Minisztérium (Ministry of Economics and Transport) after the generalelections...