While Hungarian Television (MTV) now trails in third place in the race for Hungarian teevee viewers, it spends billions of forints more on programs than ratings leaders RTL Klub and second-place TV2, writes index.hu. Last year, RTL Klub spent an estimated Ft 29 billion (roughly €106 million), TV2 Ft 22 billion, while MTV paid out nearly Ft 34 billion for programs, most of which came from state support. Sounds like a winning formula!

Meanwhile, in drearily related news, another of Hungary's public teevee broadcasters - Duna Televízió - says it may try to shore up its finances by launching a new movie channel. Channel president László Cselényi said he thinks a channel airing "quality" movies could find a place in the market. Rather than charging cable providers for carrying the signal, the idea would be to support it through advertising. Good luck with that.