What abomination of a radio station have we had foisted on us? Bring back Slager!

;) for the past 20 years everyone in this country had been referring to a 'regime change' except nothing ever changed. no wonder only the surrounding countries are celebrating - they actually made changes. what a depressing place.

Someone fill me in here.

Slager radio is a dusty old radio station that plays David Hasselhoff and Katchagoogoo records. Nothing wrong with that, but how the f&ck do they manage to turn this into a political issue.

Someone somewhere has got far too much time on their hands.

@JD: No matter what the content of the radio stations were, they were the most popular. Fidesz and MSZP got together and initially approached the radio station owners asking for 50% of their equity in return for their contracts to be renewed. They balked, so Fidesz set up one company, MSZP set up another and these two companies won the new contracts. The idea being that the revenue from these stations (advertising etc...) will be used to partially finance the MSZP and Fidesz coffers. This at a time when each is calling the other names and pretending they have done everything they can to clean up government. Head of ORTT, the media watchdog resigned over the issue and issued his own statement on the matter clearly outline the media laws that MSZP and Fidesz have broken http://www.ortt.hu/hirek.php?hir_id=457 Go back a few weeks and read HVG, Narancs, HétiVálasz etc... and there are lots more gory details.

It sounds farcical and if it wasn't so farcical it would be scarey.

To that end, the only thing left to ask it whether the new stations will be playing as much David Hasselhoff and Katchagoogoo.

@Klara. I can see how losing Slager and Danubius might mean an end to partying in the streets, but how does allocating radio stations frequencies equate to the overthrow of governments?

If you expect things to improve in Hungary in the social, economical,and political, spheres in the coming years -forget it.
Pop radio playing corny tunes is not the issue.
Corrupt, commie politicians are the centre of attention again,influencing and manipulating contracts that should be awarded without intervention.
Its the same old pop tune again but nevertheless true - "Call me comrade and we'll share the spoils".
Well done Vándorló for an accurate and informed assessment.
P.S.
Erik thinks Fidesz are "conservative"??

@Vandorlo. Are you sure about this? That the 2 parties actually set up these companies in order to win tenders?

@Rolrox: I put it to strongly perhaps, but these companies (groups or consortium) were quickly formed for this purpose and each party was supported and favourited by MSZP or Fidesz. This only after coercion on the existing tender holders had failed to produce the funding streams the political parties were looking for. The FM1 consortium (majority owner Est group 81%, replacing Sláger - this will be MSZP's bastard child) and Advenio Zrt (majority owner 67% Lánchíd Kereskedőház Kft., - this is Fidesz's bastard, replacing Danubius ) were the two companies that won the tenders, despite no proven experience in operating radio stations (or any media for that matter) or generating the amount of revenue that they have promised in order to win the tender. Majtényi László, the then head of ORTT, remarked that both technically and legally the contracts were not viable and encouraging the losers to sue.
The easiest way to find more information on this is searching on "Rádió-gate" - a 'snowclone' that is clear and works in English and Hungarian.
I also have to say that I am majorly pissed that I find myself agreeing with János Kóka, who seems to be working pretty hard to get an independent parliamentary inquiry - though that amounts to organising an expensive whitewash campaign. Bajnai is finally agreeing with Kóka after he met with the 7 ambassadors yesterday, who must have made it clear how peeved normal people are: http://hvg.hu/itthon/20091123_bajnai_gordon_koka_janos_ortt.aspx

@Rolrox: Just to make it clear the 81% and 67% refer to the geographical radio coverage of the stations, rather than the financial majority holdings. I'll have to dig out the old articles to find the other information I wanted to mention. If I have mixed up some of the data, apologies but I don't generally carry this stuff around with me and I was straining my memory to get this much out.
I should note that in one the articles from 2 weeks ago Majtényi detailed a series of illegal matters that he objected to over his time as head of ORTT. One involving a TV tender and Baló György (Morvai Krisztina husband) - he was on the losing side.

@Rolrox: Just one last thing that came to mind and probably the most central. According to Majtényi these new contracts will result in lost venue of 670 million ft annually - compared to renewal of the old contracts. This is perhaps the most damning.

Legally, also Advenio should ahve been forced to give up their connection to Lánchíd radio in order to win this frequency. None of that seems to have happened. There is lots of stuff about not actually submitting a valid tender according to the rules - but this is apparently the norm with media contracts and ORTT related stuff in Hungary.

@Rolrox: Just had a look at the new radio station websites (Klassz Rádió and Neo FM) and note that most carry pretty strong anti-market,-capitalist, -foreigner etc... comments. However one of them I really like "Mutyisztán, az én hazám!" (roughly, 'Payola-land is my homeland!'). Think I'll get a variation on that printed on a T-shirt "Mutyisztán, az én örökbefogadott hazám!" ('Payola-land is my adopted homeland!').

@Rolrox: Even if Sláger's boss hasn't the stomach for a fight it is good to see some people have. Just read this 'Majtényi takes the radio frequency issue to the attorney general' ("Majtényi a legfőbb ügyészhez viszi a rádiófrekvenciák ügyét") http://www.kreativ.hu/cikk.php?id=25233 Majtényi László was the head of ORTT, well still is until the 30th. He is having the attorney general, Tamás Kovács, look at this from Monday. Bochkor Gábor and Boros Lajos have also spoken out on the issue. This one is set to poison the well for the election to come.

@Vandorlo. Wow... seems I unleashed a torrent. But I'm still curious as I cannot read HU well enough to get to the level of detail you can relate.

So we have the head of the ORTT who apparently is emasculated, saying that the tender was wrong; and yet somebody approved the tender. Who?

However this has come to fruition, is there no worry that the country as a whole is demonstrating that the rules, fairplay, etc. are for show; and that those expected to ensure fair execution have only the power to resign? This makes policing anything here (including a contract and FDI) risky, no?

Is it not a worry nationally that HU will award contracts to companies who've not demonstrated competence, lacking track records?

Will this find its way to the courts? Will it affect the FDI?