This week marks one year since the election in which the Fidesz party of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán swept to another landslide victory in Hungary, securing a third consecutive term in office, The International Press Institute (IPI) reports.

The 12 months since then have been marked by a period of relative quiet in terms of major new threats to media freedom. There have been no more takeovers of major independent media houses; no silencing of critical media through discriminatory regulatory decisions. However, far from a sign of improvement in the government’s press freedom record, this period of relative stasis is reflective, observers say, of something far more sinister: the overwhelming success of Fidesz’s decade-long campaign to muzzle critical voices and establish a government-friendly media empire.

After Fidesz secured its second term in 2018, the following years saw multiple major developments in the media market by Fidesz and its allies. In 2018, its expanding media empire was solidified under the KESMA conglomerate, a network run by Fidesz allies which included more than 500 titles. Using business allies as proxies, the ruling party also continued to engineer the takeover of independent media houses. In 2020, pro-government business interests made their move against Index, leading to its implosion and a mass resignation of journalists. In late 2020, the government-controlled media regulator then removed the country’s last remaining major radio broadcaster critical of the government, Klubrádió, from the airwaves following a discriminatory licensing decision.

In comparison, the year following the 2022 election has been quiet. The reasons for this, according to interviews conducted by IPI with Hungarian journalists and media experts, are twofold. The first stems from the high level of control and co-option of the media market that Fidesz already enjoys.

A second and connected reason for the lack of overt government interference in the media market, observes note, is the diminished pool of independent media houses left for the government to target. Since returning to power in 2010, Fidesz has relied on business allies and oligarchs to step in and buy up independent media houses, who then fired journalists, flipped their editorial lines and aligned them with Fidesz’s messaging. One by one, large titles such as Origo and Népszabadság (later closed) were snapped up by Fidesz allies from retreating foreign owners. Of the three remaining major, independent media understood to be targets, none of their owners show signs of relinquishing control any time soon.

The first is leading television channel RTL Klub, owned by Luxembourg-based media conglomerate RTL Group. The broadcaster has long been insulated from financial pressure through its foreign-ownership and remains a market challenger for TV2, owned by a close ally of Prime Minister Orbán. RTL Klub’s sale, long eyed by figures in the pro-Fidesz business network, would spell disaster for citizens’ access to pluralistic news reporting on television. Despite persistent rumors, there have been no major indications that RTL Group is considering an imminent sale.

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