Start: Klubrádió vs. Media Authority: Restart a War

Absolutely absurd, the argument that Club Radio has repeatedly violated the law is unfounded.

– said András Arató, president of the Board of Directors and majority shareholder of hvg.hu, after the National Communications and Media Authority (NMHH) announced that the Media Council will not renew the ownership of Klubrádió, which expires on February 14, 2021, so it can be requested again, it becomes the 92.9 MHz frequency.

The radio requested a 7-year extension, which has now been rejected by the authorities. But Arató has already spoken in an interview with Népszava in mid-August that the media law provides an almost unlimited number of options for the authority to decide how radio works as it pleases, without giving reasons.

It then relied on the extension, which it said would have been an “expression of the will of the people”, and considered the deprivation of the possibility of broadcasting an abuse of rights.

Our future depends solely on the decision of a state body, a body in which only the delegates of the largest ruling party sit.

Following Friday’s rejection, he said the radio had made “very serious” commitments on public content and speech, which were always respected. Therefore, in its view, NMHH could not have invoked an infringement. Remember they gave you 3-4 penalties in the last few years, for example, because the advertising was louder than necessary.

The same was argued by CEO Richard Stock, who spoke on the southern radio show and described the management position:

The Media Council had no legally valid reason to reject the frequency extension request, our operation complied with the legal requirements.

According to him, there is a political decision behind it all, and the statements in the NMHH communication are very reminiscent of what happened 10 years ago, when the Media Council considered that the Club Radio frequency offer at that time was formally flawed and low professional level. (More on this later). According to Stock, “It was a false statement and it is, and another war is coming.” He said:

The goal here is to prevent Club Radio from playing.

But what about Club Radio?

Club Radio operates on this frequency since 2014 and has received various sanctions since then. According to documents found on the NMHH website, the radio was convicted, among others, of

• readers’ opinions on political news,
• they violated the program quota by not playing enough Hungarian music (it happened several times),
• made mistakes in advertising,
• no data provided (this was said to be the most common mistake).

We asked NMHH in which violation the contract was not extended, citing six cases:

• In May 2014, Klubrádió joined the network without permission from the media council,
• breached the monthly notification obligation for several years, for months (in one case it was observed that the infraction was not minor),
• several times it failed to meet the program quota obligation for Hungarian musical works and for a week it did not broadcast the program in accordance with the program structure undertaken.

It was not included in his response, but his statement indicated that Club Radio had not challenged any of the decisions in court and had paid the fine after each one (that is, they had taken it to acknowledge the violation).

According to NMHH, it is not a unique case that the Media Council does not renew the ownership of a radio station due to a legal exclusion (serious or repeated offense), the same happened last year with three rural tributes and one from Budapest (the latter was Radio Civil, who also acted due to data deficiencies). ). Rural radio stations did not contest the decision, while Civil Radio did, but the Mansion gave the truth to the Media Council. The frequency of this will also be tendered in the near future.

However, Civil Radio has not ceased to exist, it has been operating as an Internet radio ever since, as it has been registered by the authority as a linear Internet radio.

Is this also waiting for Club Radio?

The Klubrádió audience data is not public either (according to Arató, 150-200 thousand people listen to it every day), and at most you can guess which age group is listening to the tax, but the editor-in-chief Gábor Pataki, who arrived in 2014, he promised political independence.

they also try to address the students’ children and grandchildren at the time.

If this promise has not been kept since then, existing online as a solution for Civil Radio could be risky for them. According to András Arató, however, this could be a real option (according to a measurement of a few years ago, the average listener on the radio was a 50-year-old woman), but it would not run until February 14 (until then they have permission to operate on the frequency).

It is true that they will demand the decision, the details of which will be analyzed in the coming days. It is now certain that, if necessary, the frequency will be requested again, if only so that no one can argue that it has not been tried or made even more visible: a political decision has been made here, as only the delegates of Fidesz they sit in the Media Council.

Richard Stock on Club Radio also promised that whatever it was, the radio would play somehow.

They are still in litigation with the Media Council

Club Radio operated 10 years ago on another frequency, 95.3, whose license expired on February 11, 2011 in that band. NMHH’s predecessor, the National Radio and Television Board, granted them frequency 92.9 in April 2010, but the decision was overturned by NMHH on the grounds that the radio was on another frequency and it had not waived its right.

Then, Club Radio requested two frequencies, but the Media Council excluded them, claiming that the blank pages had not been numbered or signed. A long lawsuit was started, the radio continued to operate with temporary licenses extended every 60 days, and in May 2013 it won the lawsuits. In 95.3, the structure of the program would have had to be changed significantly, plus a transmission rate of 32 million, so they continued on the community frequency of 92.9, which can be used for free, and it was not even necessary modify them in the programs.

Much later, after addressing the public interest request of the Society for Freedoms, it turned out that the Media Council used formal requirements as a discriminatory tool in the reallocation of frequencies, and illegally, with the same rigor, demanded compliance with the contest requirements. In addition, several judgments determined that the conditions denounced, such as the numbering and the signature of the blank back covers, could not be read in the call for bids.

Due to the procedure, the company that operates the Radio Club claimed 1,400 million in damages from NMHH, however, the Mansion decided a few years ago that only the 103 million paid unnecessarily for the frequency use fee, plus 2 million in damages will be reimbursed. . The company also sued for not reaching revenue due to uncertainty, but lost it in the first instance in early 2020. The decision has been appealed, so they are still suing NMHH.

Not only has the frequency changed, but also the ownership structure: four years ago, British Media, linked to Rabbi Köves Slomó, appeared as a co-owner and has since become the owner of several news outlets. We also contacted Köves Slomo to evaluate NMHH’s decision, but he declined to comment in the absence of participation.