Klubrádió
Hungarian Auto Club decided to participate in a tender for two Budapest-based frequencies offered by ORTT (95.3 and 102.1 MHz).
[5] Monográf, whose ownership at that time had close ties to the SZDSZ party, acquired Klubrádió from the Hungarian Auto Club, even though other bidders offered more.
With this change, the original Klubrádió owned by the actual Autó Klub (HAC), together with the traffic radio format in Hungary, disappeared after having the approval of the media authority (ORTT).
However, since Auto Klub offered many public service broadcasts in the tender, such as frequent traffic news, the license fee for the station was considerably less than that of a commercial radio.
The ORTT at the time, dominated by MSZP and SZDSZ members awarded the frequency to two startups, dislodging the previous owners.
An anchor of the station, György Bolgár have said on Klubrádió that, the company who is willing to pay the most money for a frequency should be proclaimed the winner.
PM Gyurcsány anchored the 500th edition of Kontra, one of Klubrádió's prime-time shows hosted by József Orosz.
[9] Apart from PM Gyurcsány, other well-known personalities hosted the show, for example István Szabó Academy Awarded director and Ibolya Dávid, then-president of MDF.
A case became controversial after an unidentified caller falsely accused the Kruchina brothers of various violent acts allegedly committed on 2007 March 15, when they were in Germany.
[12] The Kruchinas, with the help of Bodoky, then turned to ORTT, the data ombudsman, Attila Péterfalvi, and sued Klubrádió in court.
[13] In connection with the case it was alleged that Klubrádió uses organized callers[14] to make various questionable statements, which would lead to larger legal exposure if said by a radio host.
The commercial station lost its financial integrity because many companies and agencies stopped advertising in Klubrádió for fearing of political consequences, and it almost went bankruptcy.
[16] During the actual tender, Klubrádió itself have offered to pay 55 million forints for the frequency, almost ten times of its original suggestion.
In Hungary, all tender decisions are subject to legal review, and when the management of Klubrádió launched a suit for the frequency, a court case began.
Since the results of the other tenders (invited with identical terms and conditions as 95.3Mhz) were not attacked in court, the winner, Juventus radio was given the green light to start broadcasting on 1 February on 103,9 MHz.
According to The New York Times, "The clash has become emblematic of what critics call a bald attempt by the Orbán government to tighten its grip on the news media, the judiciary, the central bank and education, and the inability of the European Union, which Hungary joined in 2004, to restrain a government not cleaving to the bloc’s democratic standards."
Klubrádió previously had to collect more than HUF 120 million from donations through a fundraising campaign in order to maintain its running; at the same time, advertisers either withdrew or refused putting ads on a so-called liberal Klubrádió for fearing of the political consequences that were apparent after the latest elections.
After press attacks on Autoradio, the winner of the tender intensified, the firm announced a plan to a sell the frequency, and that they started talks with several radio companies including Klubrádió.
[25] After the fourth court ruling, a grass-roots campaign by thousands of listeners and mounting international pressure — the media council finally backed down and awarded Klubrádió the long-term frequency in March 2013.
[27] According to AP, the independent station "has been in the crosshairs of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s government since his return to power in 2010".
[33][34] CNN at the time characterized Klubrádió as "one of Hungary's last independent radio stations" said that its removal was "widely seen as a blow against media freedom".
