#klubradio

Rohadjanak meg ezek is.

Simán leadják Lavrov és Szijjas közleményét.

Free Broadcast Foundation (www.szabadsavert.hu) organizes the spring raise money campaign for the one and only free radio station in Hungary this week.

If you want to send money - even a dime counts - you can use the accounts below. Thanks for the support.

Free Broadcast Foundation - Szabadsávért Alapítvány HUF Acc # HU83 10918001-00000068-67980006 EUR Acc # HU93 10918001-00000068-67980020 USD Acc # HU22 10918001-00000068-67980037 SWIFT (BIC) : BACXHUHB

Klubrádió Reggeli Gyors

O.O

The Klubradio saga apparently finally came to end a few days ago. Some have used the story to claim problems with media freedom in Hungary, but there’s more to this story than meets the eye. I’ve written on the background in a previous post. Let me summarize some of the details:

With the expiration of Klubradio’s operating license, the Media Council announced an open tender in mid-2011 with transparent terms and conditions. While the tender submitted by Klubradio gained maximum points in the subjective scores, its objective scores (ratio of music content in the station programming and the price they offered for the license) fell far below the other offers. The Media Council does not have the leeway to alter the weight given to objective criteria, and ignoring the scores on objective criteria (particularly price offers) of the other tenders would have compromised the fairness of the process.

Klubradio went to court claiming that the winning bid contained formal mistakes. They won the case. As a result the Media Council decided to withdraw the whole tender on the grounds that, based on this ruling, all the applicants committed formal mistakes. Klubradio went to court again claiming that the Media Council shouldn’t have voided all the applications as a result of the first court decision, only the winning application. They won again. What we could see here is that the Media Council will have to grant a license for the use of a public resource to one of the lower bidders, Klubradio or another. Not exactly a good deal for the Hungarian taxpayer.

Klubradio poster on the streets on Hungary. Source:Klubradio.hu

Last week, the Media Council announced that, abiding by the Court ruling, they will sign a contract with Klubradio for the 95.3 Mhz frequency, regardless of the fact that Klubradio was one of the lowest bidders for the frequency. (If you are really interested in the details, here’s a 38-page long description with all the technical details)

We have been hearing two major points of criticism regarding the case. Most critics say the Media Council wanted to silence Klubradio, and so the Council delayed the agreement and signing of the contracts. Facts show otherwise: the Media Council wanted to equally consider the interest of all the applicants. Klubradio, as you may recall, was among the lowest bidders for the license. There were several others, including three with higher bids: Autoradio, Juventus, and Click Radio; and two with similar bids: Radio 1 and Rumba Radio. Remember, the first court ruling only said the highest bidder should have been revoked due to minor formal mistakes. In a case where multiple parties show reasonable interest, a lengthier procedure is required and during that lengthy procedure, Klubradio did not experience one second of silence. And unless they want otherwise, they will not in the near future either, as they are being offered a seven-year license as a result of the ruling.

The second point of criticism claims that Klubradio should be entitled to a free frequency like other similar news and talk radio stations. It’s a vicious move, they say, for the Media Council to turn Klubradio’s frequency into a commercial one. Inforadio – a similar news and talk radio in Budapest – went through the same thing. They migrated from 95.8 (which has been turned into a commercial frequency) to 88.1 (which is a public-service frequency run under a free license). Klubradio did not apply for the tender on 88.1, or for any other public frequency since the Media Council began operating.