Hungary turns off Orbán's television and apologizes for years of lies in public media

Hungary experienced an unthinkable scene this Tuesday during the years of Viktor Orbán. The public television M1 interrupted its broadcast, left the screen black and sent a direct message to viewers: “Public media cannot lie. We apologize for having done so for so many years”.

The gesture has an enormous political charge. The new Government of Péter Magyar has begun to dismantle the public radio and television that for 16 years functioned as one of the great lungs of Orbán's power. It was not just an affiliated channel. It was a propaganda machine at the service of Fidesz, with news aligned with the Government, constant attacks on the opposition and a hostile view towards Brussels, immigration, LGTBI rights and any civil counterweight.

Magyar celebrated it on social media as a historic day. “They lied at night. They lied by day. They lied on all channels. That is over,” wrote the prime minister. The public radio Kossuth, where Orbán intervened every Friday for years, also remained in informational silence and temporarily broadcast classical music.

The decision comes just a few months after the electoral victory of Tisza, Magyar's party, which ended Orbán's long illiberal period. The new Executive has placed temporary teams in charge of public media and has suspended news services while preparing a deeper legal reform. The official idea is to redo appointments, open consultations and build an independent, credible public radio and television subject to more transparent rules.

The great symbol of Orbán's power

Orbán did not build his power only from Parliament. He also did it from microphones, newscasts, institutional advertising and a network of public and private media controlled by businessmen close to Fidesz. That ecosystem was a central piece of his regime.

Hungary's fall in international press freedom indicators summarizes the deterioration well. The country went from occupying the 23rd position in the Reporters Without Borders index in 2010, the year Orbán returned to power, to ranking 74th in 2026. Public media came under suspicion inside and outside Hungary, and a very large part of the private market ended up directly or indirectly linked to Fidesz.

This media capture had a very specific political function. It reduced the electoral cost of abuses of power. It turned every European criticism into a foreign attack. It presented the opposition as a national threat. And it fabricated a daily narrative in which Orbán appeared as a defender of the homeland against Brussels, migrants, judges, NGOs, or independent journalists.

That is why the fade to black of M1 goes much further than a technical reform. Magyar has chosen an easy-to-understand symbol for any citizen: cutting the signal of the television that lied and publicly apologizing. It is a gesture of rupture, almost ceremonial, with the old apparatus of power.

A country trying to leave the ultra laboratory

Magyar's new Hungary is advancing at great speed. The Government has promised reforms in media, justice, supervisory bodies, and relations with the European Union. It also seeks to recover funds frozen by Brussels during Orbán's time due to rule of law problems, corruption, and lack of democratic guarantees.

The change opens an important question for Europe. Hungary was for years the model of the international far-right, a kind of showcase of democracy emptied from within. Orbán maintained elections, flags, and parliament, but he gradually closed spaces for pluralism until he turned the State into a structure tailor-made for Fidesz.

Now the country becomes something else. An exit experiment. How to dismantle a propaganda network without falling into a political purge. How to recover a public television when millions of citizens have stopped trusting it. How to replace partisan control with stable rules that will also hold when the Government changes again.

That is the delicate point. Turning off a news program can be an effective visual blow. Rebuilding credibility will take much longer. The new leaders will have to demonstrate that public television is not changing masters, but professional culture. The challenge is not minor in a country where independent journalism suffered discredit campaigns, economic strangulation, and political pressure for more than a decade.

Orbán has already reacted by accusing Magyar of authoritarianism and calling on his followers to take refuge in allied media such as Hír TV. Fidesz tries to present the reform as revenge by the new Government, although its own media legacy makes it difficult to now sell itself as a victim of a democratic purge.

Tuesday's image remains one of the most powerful of post-Orbánism. A public television in black. An apology for years of lies. And a Government that knows that the battle for Hungarian democracy will not be won only in the courts or in Brussels, but also on the screen that for years spoke with Orbán's voice.