''Barátok közt'' (in English: ''Among Friends'') was a Hungarian television soap opera aired on

RTL Klub RTL (formerly: RTL Klub) is a Hungarian free-to-air television channel owned by RTL Group. The channel began broadcasting three days after its main rival TV2, one of Hungary's first commercial TV channels. History Since its start, RTL Klub ...

. Its premiere was on 26 October 1998 and its finale was on 17 July 2021. Through its entire run, it had been screened as two episodes on every weekday. Since its premiere, ''Barátok közt'' was the most watched regular programme domestically in

Hungary Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia a ...

, with around 1.2 million viewers per night. On 30 November 2020, in the wake of declining ratings, RTL Klub announced that the winter 2021 season would be the final season, bringing to an end the soap after 23 seasons and more than 10 000 episodes. The soap ended with a

grand finale Grand may refer to: People with the name * Grand (surname) * Grand L. Bush (born 1955), American actor * Grand Mixer DXT, American turntablist * Grand Puba (born 1966), American rapper Places * Grand, Oklahoma * Grand, Vosges, village and commu ...

which aired in

prime time Prime time or the peak time is the block of broadcast programming taking place during the middle of the evening for a television show. It is mostly targeted towards adults (and sometimes families). It is used by the major television networks to ...

, instead of its usual early evening slot, and ran for 40 minutes.

Synopsis

The series takes place on the fictional ''Mátyás király tér'' (''

King Matthias Matthias Corvinus, also called Matthias I ( hu, Hunyadi Mátyás, ro, Matia/Matei Corvin, hr, Matija/Matijaš Korvin, sk, Matej Korvín, cz, Matyáš Korvín; ), was King of Hungary and Croatia from 1458 to 1490. After conducting several mi ...

Square'') in

Budapest Budapest (, ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Hungary. It is the ninth-largest city in the European Union by population within city limits and the second-largest city on the Danube river; the city has an estimated population ...

. ''Barátok közt'' is about the life of the people living here, about the Berényi family and their family business. In the first episode the oldest one of the Berényi brothers, Zoltán Berényi dies and leaves his company to his wife, Claudia Berényi (

Edit Ábrahám Edit may refer to: Concepts * an action that is part of an editing process (including of images, video, and film) * a particular version that is the result of editing, especially of film (for example, fan edit), or music (for example, radi ...

), his two brothers, Miklós ( Zoltán Szőke) and András Berényi (died in 2013, portrayed by Péter R Kárpáti), Miklós’ wife, Nóra Balogh (divorced in 2005, portrayed by Izabella Varga), and his friend, László Novák ( Csaba Tihanyi-Tóth). Most of the characters are well known in Hungary, like Zsolt Bartha ( Károly Rékasi), or Magdolna Kertész ( Zsóka Fodor), whose death in 2009 was among the greatest news in the country.

International versions

The license of the series was sold in several countries in Europe. In

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populous ...

its local version, ''

Na Wspólnej ''Na Wspólnej'' (, "On Wspólna Street") is a Polish television soap opera. It has been running since 2003 on the TVN channel as its flagship primetime weekday soap opera. It is loosely based on the German production ''Unter uns'' and it follow ...

'', premiered in January 2003 on

TVN TVN may refer to: * TVN (Australian TV channel), a former horse racing channel * Televisión Nacional de Chile, a public broadcaster * TVN (Indonesia), a former television station; predecessor of Rajawali Televisi * TVN (Norway), or TVNorge, a comm ...

. The

Slovakia Slovakia (; sk, Slovensko ), officially the Slovak Republic ( sk, Slovenská republika, links=no ), is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east, Hungary to the south, Austria to the s ...

n version was canceled because of financial reasons. The

Romania Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern, and Southeast Europe, Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, S ...

n version was also canceled due to low ratings.

References

External links

* *
Hivatalos honlap
Hungarian television shows 2020s Hungarian television series 2010s Hungarian television series 2000s Hungarian television series 1990s Hungarian television series 1998 Hungarian television series debuts 2021 Hungarian television series endings Hungarian-language television shows RTL (Hungarian TV channel) original programming {{Hungary-tv-prog-stub