Tilos Rádió is a community,

non-profit A nonprofit organization (NPO), also known as a nonbusiness entity, nonprofit institution, not-for-profit organization, or simply a nonprofit, is a non-governmental (private) legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public, or so ...

, listener supported

radio Radio is the technology of communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 3 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transmitter connec ...

station in

Budapest Budapest is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns of Hungary, most populous city of Hungary. It is the List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, tenth-largest city in the European Union by popul ...

Hungary Hungary is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning much of the Pannonian Basin, 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 and ...

History

Tilos Rádió was the first

community radio Community radio is a radio service offering a third model of radio broadcasting in addition to commercial broadcasting, commercial and public broadcasting. Community broadcasting, Community stations serve geographic communities and communities o ...

station in

, established as a pirate broadcaster in 1991. The station's programmers have always contributed on a voluntary basis. Tilos Rádió has never broadcast

advertisement Advertising is the practice and techniques employed to bring attention to a Product (business), product or Service (economics), service. Advertising aims to present a product or service in terms of utility, advantages, and qualities of int ...

s, and has a strong

social Social organisms, including human(s), live collectively in interacting populations. This interaction is considered social whether they are aware of it or not, and whether the exchange is voluntary or not. Etymology The word "social" derives fro ...

and freedom-of-expression commitment.

Zsolt Palotai Zsolt Palotai (also known as ''DJ Palotai'', b. 28 May 1961 in Győr, d. 18 November 2023) was a Hungarian electronic music Electronic music broadly is a group of music genres that employ electronic musical instruments, circuitry-based musi ...

was one of the founders. Tilos Rádió was established as a pirate community radio station in Budapest in 1991 as a way of bringing the public's attention to the fact that there was at that time no legal framework for independent and community broadcasters. During the first years of its broadcasting, Tilos (meaning "forbidden" in Hungarian) enjoyed wide public interest and played a key role in the 1995

liberalisation Liberalization or liberalisation (British English) is a broad term that refers to the practice of making laws, systems, or opinions less severe, usually in the sense of eliminating certain government regulations or restrictions. The term is used ...

of the airwaves in Hungary. Tilos Rádió obtained a legal frequency license in 1995 and became a popular local community station in Budapest with its morning phone-in talk-shows and its music programmes, broadcasting 12 hours a day. Tilos is a key player in the cultural and lifestyle scene of Budapest. Meanwhile, Tilos Rádió has its fingers on the public pulse with its social thinking, minority oriented programmes, and its radical and tolerant attitude. Tilos' broadcasts are mainly financed by listeners' donations and the income from fund-raising events, and partly by support from EU programmes, international

NGOs A non-governmental organization (NGO) is an independent, typically nonprofit organization that operates outside government control, though it may get a significant percentage of its funding from government or corporate sources. NGOs often focus ...

and charity institutions. In November 1999, Tilos Rádió had to apply for a new frequency licence. Tilos Rádió wanted to broadcast 24 hours a day. Tilos did not receive a new frequency licence – this meant that the radio had to leave its

frequency Frequency is the number of occurrences of a repeating event per unit of time. Frequency is an important parameter used in science and engineering to specify the rate of oscillatory and vibratory phenomena, such as mechanical vibrations, audio ...

in 2000. In October 2002, almost 3 years later, with its third application, Tilos Rádió received a licence for the 90.3

MHz The hertz (symbol: Hz) is the unit of frequency in the International System of Units (SI), often described as being equivalent to one event (or cycle) per second. The hertz is an SI derived unit whose formal expression in terms of SI base u ...

frequency in Budapest for seven years. Tilos Rádió can also be heard via cable and via Internet 24 hours a day. The license was renewed in 2008 and in 2015. The radio temporarily stopped broadcasting on September 3, 2022, on the expiration of its license. The radio already submitted a new broadcast application to National Media and Infocommunications Authority as a lone applicant. The application covers the usage of the regional 90.3 MHz frequency for additional 10 years. The radio won the license and broadcasting resumed on October 22, 2022.

Controversies

Ice-T gate

In 2011 Hungary's then-new media authority, National Media and Infocommunications Authority has begun investigating Tilos Rádió for playing a song by rapper

Ice-T Tracy Lauren Marrow (born February 16, 1958), known professionally as Ice-T (or Ice T), is an American rapper and actor. He is active in both hip hop music, hip hop and heavy metal music, heavy metal. Ice-T began his career as an underground r ...

which it said "could influence the development of minors in a negative way" on 2 September 2010 (at 5.51pm). The media authority said the song should only have been broadcast after 9pm. Tilos Rádió argues that since the lyrics are in English and the knowledge of foreign languages among the Hungarian population is far below EU average, furthermore the station has very few young listeners, so the song could not have an "adverse affect icon the moral development" of children under 16. Hungarian authorities said their investigation is based on a 1996 law regulating radio and television.Unknown
/ref> Tilos Rádió points out that "up till this point, for over a decade, it hasn’t occurred that the authority would investigate and disapprove of the lyrics of a non-Hungarian song".

Archived broadcasts

The station is one of the most archived radio stations in the world, with the past 11 years (since 2010.04.01) recorded and uploaded to their online archive 24/7.

References

External links

Official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Tilos Radio Radio stations in Hungary Hungarian-language radio stations Former pirate radio stations Community radio stations Mass media in Budapest Radio stations established in 1991