Tilos Rádió

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Tilos Rádió is the oldest independent community radio in Hungary and is based in Budapest . The transmitter can be received on the VHF frequency 90.3 MHz in Budapest and the surrounding area.

Around 250 employees work at the station on a voluntary basis. Very few are professional journalists or employees with media experience. The station is one of the few alternatives to the commercial and public service media in Hungary that gives the underrepresented groups a public voice. There are programs on topics about minorities, people with disabilities and other civil topics, such as human rights, political transparency in public life, etc. The station explicitly has no political affiliation, but due to the topics that are addressed, it is more of a political one left political attitudes. In addition to the talk shows, there are also pure music programs, which make up about half of the broadcast time.

The number of listeners is difficult to estimate. However, according to cross-station market research by the media authority in recent years, the radio has an audience of approximately 14,000 listeners per day. In addition, there is the number who hear the radio on the live stream.

Tilos Rádió does not send any advertising and is mainly financed by donations from the audience and membership fees from the volunteers. Since 2013, the station has not received any government funding to strengthen its political independence. In addition, every taxpayer in Hungary can determine over 1% of his income tax and donate this share to a specific charitable organization. Every year there is a one-week fundraising marathon with numerous concerts, performances and tombolas.

The station was founded in 1991 as an alternative to the state news monopoly by the opposition underground movement as a pirate station . A pirate station because the media laws that were valid at the time and still stemming from the socialist system did not allow private media that were independent of the state. Hence the name "tilos", which means "forbidden" in German. With the liberalization of the broadcasting market in 1995, Tilos Rádió received a broadcast license and from then on he broadcast legally, 12 hours a day.

This license expired in November 1999 and the broadcaster had to apply for a new broadcasting license, which was refused by the right-wing conservative government led by Fidesz at the time. Only after the elections in 2002, when the socialist party MSZP formed a government coalition with the SZDSZ party , did the station get the license back. In the meantime, the station could only be heard over the Internet. Since then, Tilos Rádió has been broadcasting 24 hours a day.

The broadcaster was again banned from broadcasting for 30 days by the media supervisory authority ORTT ( Országos Rádió és Televízió Testület ) when, on Christmas Eve 2003, a drunken host announced that he would “exterminate all Christians”. The broadcaster immediately distanced itself from this statement, the moderator was fired and Tilos Rádió only broadcast music for 2 weeks. In January 2004, a demonstration was held in front of the radio building, during which hate speech was held and flags, including an Israeli flag, were burned.

The broadcaster was the first institution against which the media authority Nemzeti Média- és Hírközlési Hatóság initiated proceedings in 2011. The rapper Ice-T complained about playing the song It's on because of the allegedly "youth-endangering" lyrics. The proceedings were then dropped on the grounds that Hungarian minors did not understand the singer's American slang at all.

In the history of the station there have been several German-language programs: Lichthof (2002–2013), Mehr Licht (2013–2014) and the current lighthouse (2017– today ).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Mutatjuk, milyen rádióadókat hallgatunk. DigitalHungary, August 12, 2018, accessed November 6, 2018 (Hungarian).
  2. ^ Stefan Tenner: Radio Tilos back on the air. Telepolis , February 15, 2004, accessed November 6, 2018 .
  3. ↑ Ice-T is allowed to rap in Hungary too. Spiegel Online , January 13, 2011, accessed November 6, 2018 .
  4. ↑ Media authority sets an example. Orf.at , January 7, 2011, accessed November 6, 2018 .