On Tuesday afternoon, 7 July 2026, the main news channel of Hungary's public television went dark. At 4 p.m., without warning, M1 replaced its bulletin with a black screen and a short message in white text: "Public service media cannot lie. We apologise for doing this for many years nonetheless." The station added that the news service was being suspended while public media is rebuilt "to be independent and credible," and asked viewers to stay with it.
The blackout was not limited to television. State radio dropped its news segments and played classical music, and the broadcaster's online news site went blank; for a time only the MTI news agency still carried political reports. Editors and anchors associated with the previous years of coverage were dismissed, among them the M1 news chief known for his combative style.
In its own statement, the broadcaster framed the moment as a reckoning. "The black screen symbolises the end of an era," it said, acknowledging that public media had "come under the influence of political power" and "became a platform for spreading hatred and lies. From this moment on, that will change."
The change follows a landslide April election in which Peter Magyar's Tisza party ended Viktor Orban's Fidesz government after sixteen years. Overhauling state media was one of Magyar's central campaign promises. "It is a historic day," he wrote on Facebook. "They lied day and night. Now it has come to an end." As prime minister he has ordered a comprehensive review of public media and its financing, pledging a "truly balanced, objective news service," restored checks and balances, and action against corruption.
A promise still to be kept
The suspension rested on a strict legal process. Gabor Polyak, professor of media law at Budapest's ELTE University, told BIRN he had been surprised, "but before the new media law was passed, and the new management was appointed, this would not have been possible." He described the move as highly symbolic and doubted the news blackout would last more than a week or two.
The scale of the task is real. Under Orban, media laws tightened government control and independent outlets were closed or bought up; Hungary slid to 74th in 2026 from 23rd in 2010 on the Reporters Without Borders press-freedom index. Analysts caution that rebuilding a genuinely balanced service — and public trust — will be harder than switching off the old one. After nearly four hours of black screen, M1 returned in the evening with a classic Hungarian satire on dictatorship: a first, tentative step toward a different kind of public broadcasting.