When millionaire Andy Vajna last year bought TV2, Hungary's second largest commercial station with money from a state bank which specialises in export loans, Viktor Orban will have quietly chuckled.
The prime minister, whose project to transform the country into what he has called an “illiberal democracy”, has been cheered along by an increasingly compliant press and media, much of it owned by wealthy businessmen with ties to the ruling Fidesz party. And he had found a new reliable ally in TV2.
That media support, which was crucial to his 2014 election landslide, has been copperfastened by the generous largesse with which state advertising spending has ended up with those supporting his Fidesz party. TV2 alone won nearly a fifth of state advertising spend last year, four times more than its nearest rival, according to an independent media watchdog.
And Orban's has not been forgiving of those he has fallen out with – Magyar Nemzet, a conservative daily, owned by a one-time ally now critic of Orban, has seen its share of state advertising fall by more than 80 per cent in two years.
Orban’s increasing control of both state media, and private media by proxy, has caused alarm bells to ring in the EU and at the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe which has an important media freedom remit. Hungary’s press has been downgraded from “free” to only “partly-free” by Freedom House, an American NGO.
The new reality reflects a continuation of the pledges he made when elected first in 2011 to curb the liberal press – his first act was to introduce new media regulation and set up a Media Council, stuffed with Fidesz supporters , and with wide powers over content and licensing. . “His goal was to change the balance of power,” one local political scientist says. And he has done so.
Alarmingly, moreover, Orban has now found an ally and enthusiastice emulator in Poland’s Law and Justice party.