[3] Defunct Echo TV was founded as a business news channel in 2005[4] at the initiative of Gábor Széles, the 4th richest man of Hungary (as of 2017) and the head of Videoton and Ikarus Bus.

[7] Gábor Széles sold Echo TV to Fidesz-backed businessman and oligarch Lőrinc Mészáros on December 2, 2016.

Its staff and technical equipment were integrated into Hír TV, which had returned as a pro-government media portfolio after the 2018 parliamentary election.

[10] After the 2010 election in Hungary, Echo TV displayed an image of Imre Kertész, a Hungarian survivor of Auschwitz and nobel laureate, alongside a voiceover about rats.

[10][14][15][16][17][18] In 2011, Hungary's media regulator fined Echo 500,000 Forints after Szaniszló compared Roma people to "monkeys".