Former Fidesz legal adviser's company wins media monitoring tender of Hungarian government

Observer Budapest Médiafigyelő Kft., which has close ties to the Orbán government, has won a 22.3 billion HUF tender from the Hungarian government, Népszava spotted in the EU's electronic public procurement bulletin.

For this amount of more than 22 billion forints (a bit more than 55 million euros), the company is to monitor the international and domestic press in the period between 2023-2026. This public procurement procedure is formally fully compliant with the EU's expectation, which is the Hungarian government's reduction of single-actor tenders. However, there were only two bidders here: Observer and Századvég Alapítvány, which is strongly linked to Fidesz.

The tender was in the end won by Observer, which submitted the more favourable offer, for a net amount of HUF 1.39 billion per quarter. However, Népszava found out from the Opten company information system that

Observer Budapest Médiafigyelő Kft is owned by Nézőpont Csoport Befektetési és Vagyonkezelő Zrt, of which Tibor Győri, Fidesz' former legal adviser is a sole owner.

The tender was originally launched by the former Ministry of Technology and Industry led by László Palkovics, but due to the dissolution of that Ministry, the contract was signed by the Cabinet Office of Prime Minister Antal Rogán on 29 December.

The winning company is to carry out media monitoring and media research for around 150 government clients. In addition to the media monitoring, a quarterly "audience survey" of news programmes, printed and online media, involving a big sample of 4,000 people interviewed in person, as well as a "media impact" survey of 1,000 people once a week via telephone has been requested.