Launched 2005 Country Hungary | Owned by Echo Hungária TV Zrt. Website www.echotv.hu | |
Echo TV is a conservative Hungarian television channel owned and operated by Echo Hungária TV Zrt, and founded in 2005 to cover business news. Now focusing on news broadcasting and public affairs, Echo TV has received controversial attention for its association with far-right politics in Hungary.
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Creation
Echo TV founded as a business news channel in 2005 at the initiative of Gábor Széles, one of Hungary's richest men and the head of Videoton Holding, a contract electronics manufacturer. Széles had only days previously purchased Hungary's daily Magyar Hírlap; the acquisition of both stations helped Széles establish a major media presence in Hungary. Széles reportedly spent two billion Hungarian forints in creating Echo TV.
In 2006 Echo TV became a media partner of Feratel media technologies AG, based in Austria.
Association with far-right politics
According to Le Monde, Echo TV is a forum favored among neofascists in Hungary.
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. Sándor Pörzse was a well-known host for Echo TV before helping to found Jobbik's paramilitary organization the "Hungarian Guard," later banned by the Hungarian Government. Sándor Pörzse was removed from the Echo TV in 2009.
One of Echo TV's better known broadcasters is Ferenc Szaniszló, known for his racist and anti-Semitic statements. In 2011, Hungary's media regulator fined Echo 500,000 Forints after Szaniszló compared Roma people to "monkeys".