ABSTRACT
In Hungary, where Western investment in general is high compared to other former Soviet bloc countries, the liberalization of radio and television during the first half of the 1990s was slower than in other nations of Central and Eastern Europe. At stake in Hungary was ability to create a mixed broadcast system, with public and private broadcasters, in which the media would be free from political pressures. In this effort, the postcommunist socialists in the MSZP (Hungarian Socialist Party) and conservative nationalists in the MDF (Hungarian Democratic Forum), despite their differences, discovered a shared appreciation for politically controlled broadcasting. Initially, in the liberating atmosphere that surrounded the fall of communism in 1989, news programs on MTV, the public Hungarian Television station, suddenly became more interesting and informative—in a brief move that hinted of things to come, the socialist MSZP and conservative MDF temporarily delegated a supervisory committee to oversee MTV.
