More on HirTV takeover
August 4th, 2018A left-wing analyst believes the government side was led by an emotional need to recapture HírTV from its critics, while a pro-government commentator excoriates the left-liberal demonstrators who protested against the takeover.
On Index, Péter Szabó asks why the government side found it worth the confrontations and expense to get in control of a small TV station whose reach within potential viewers doesn’t exceed one per cent. This is so the more intriguing, since they had upgraded up the operations of EchoTV, and re-equipped it with state-of-the-art technology and recruited new people to run their programmes. His explanation is that they had to make the move for purely emotional reasons. HírTV was the first electronic media outlet Fidesz built for itself in an era of crushing left-liberal media superiority. When it turned against PM Orbán in 2015, the faithful reacted with frustration and a sense of loss. It was mainly to soothe their hurt pride, Szabó writes, that HírTV has been taken back.
On 888, Attila Viktor Vincze condemns the small demonstration held by Momentum in front of the former public TV building in the centre of Budapest in protest at the HírTV takeover. Some of the people fired from HírTV a few days ago used to run TV programmes on MTV public television twelve year ago when that station didn’t even dare cover the siege that was mounted on their own headquarters, Vincze recalls. HírTV did, he continues, and concludes by welcoming the fact that now HírTV is ‘back to the same spirit.’