Hungary/ 4.2 Specific policy issues and recent debates  

4.2.3 Cultural/creative industries: policies and programmes

To date there is no comprehensive strategy in Hungary directed towards the cultural industries as a whole, or about a co-ordinated policy between the cultural and the economic administration in favour of the creative industries.

In 2005, however, the Hungarian Intellectual Property Office published the analysis of the economic contribution of copyright-based industries in Hungary in 2002. This was complemented and compared with the 2006 data and published in 2011 (A szerzÅ‘i jogi ágazatok gazdasági súlya Magyarországon 3). The surveys interpret the copyright industry in the broadest sense; they take into consideration all the activities relating to the creation, distribution, communication to the public, etc. of works protected under Copyright Law, or which constitute the technical background necessary for the "consumption" of copyrighted creations, as well as which serve them in any other manner. According to the findings of the survey, the gross added value of the broadly defined copyright-based industries represented 7.4% of the national economy's gross added value in 2006, about one per cent above the 2002 value; furthermore over 7% of the total employment rate was from this sector in both years. The contribution of core copyright industries was 4.2% of national GDP, representing the same share of total employment in Hungary.  

Another team has carried out the mapping of the "creative class" as defined in the best cited relevant international literature, using the standard classification of occupations in Hungary (FEOR): Ságvári-Lengyel: Kreatív_atlasz.

Table 1:     Sales in cultural industries, 2003-2011

Sources:    http://www.mahasz.hu/, http://www.mkke.hu/.

Notes:       Both audio and video include all forms: DVD, CD, cassettes etc. Domestic means not imported. Digital units refer to audio and video downloads and music streaming.

In the field of book publishing, after the reduction of VAT from 12% to 5% in 2004, the 1% cultural levy was also removed from January 2010. The average print-run has been decreasing, from about 10 000 at the time of the regime change in the early 1990s, to below 3 000 today; furthermore, 2009 and 2010 were the only years since the regime change when both output and sales decreased. The share of foreign owned houses in sales stood at 24.29% in 2010 (against 30.9% in 2009).

Figure 1:  Market turnover produced by home and foreign owned publishing houses, in billion HUF, in %, 2000-2010

Source:    http://www.mkke.hu.

Independent presses are fairly represented: 15 publishers produce 59.7% of the sales, and 181 presses sell 82.27%, which shows a smaller degree of concentration than in most of the European markets. There is a greater concentration in bookselling, where the Alexandra chain is becoming more dominant year by year. In the book sector, a scheme of reduced interest rates on loans has been functioning for over a decade now (50% of the interest is covered by the Ministry), which is jointly managed by the Ministry and a private bank selected through a tendering process.

By the amendment of the Law on the Textbook Market (Act XXXVII/2001) a state owned Ltd. Company (Könyvtárellátó) became a monopoly supplier of the entire public education system.

After several years' preparation, in 2011 the National Cultural Fund launched the Márai Programme, bearing the name of a 20th century Hungarian novelist. The programme supports library readers by listing, collecting and distributing currently published literature books. In the first year 500 titles (50% of which was non-fiction) were selected, with 200 copies of each title to be offered to libraries at the expense of the Fund. From 2012 a reduced variant is continued.

Table 2:     Number of published titles, 1990-2011

Source:     Central Statistical Office.

The shrinking sales revenues in recorded music reflect the global crisis in this sector. Both 2009 and 2010 produced slight increases in the number of copies over the preceding year - Table 1 reflects a serious fallback in 2011.

The Law on Motion Pictures, commonly called the Film Law, Act II/2004, altered the environment of film making by introducing tax credits (see chapter 5.1.5) and establishing complex regulation of state supports. The Law introduced the registration of organisations involved in film-making. This role, together with delivering certificates for tax credits as well as rating films suitable for children is done by the National Film Office. As a result, money invested in shooting films grew significantly – especially in foreign co-productions, but a considerable amount went to fully or partially Hungarian productions.

The system of state subsidies was partly based on post-financing and the Hungarian Motion Picture Public Foundation had accumulated promises of several billion forints by 2010. In 2011 this quango was dissolved and most of the subsidies and grants to the entire scope of the sector, from script writing to distribution, were re-channelled to a new state owned limited company, the National Film Fund (http://www.filmalap.hu).

The promotion agency Magyar Filmunió is also affiliated to this new entity: among others, it is instrumental in securing financial contributions from the Eurimage and Media Plus programmes, which has come close to 1 000 million HUF (about 3.8 million EUR) over the period since Hungary has been involved. From 2012, 80% of the revenue from one game of the National Lottery ("6 from 45") shall be the main source of the Film Fund, about 4 billion HUF in 2012 (ca 14 million EUR). The National Film Office was transferred from the cultural sector to the National Media and Infocommunication Authority. The Film Office will control film production and audit jointly with the Film Fund, providing one shop services for producers. The Film Fund distributes abroad all those films that are stored in MaNDA (see chapter 4.2.11).

The fundamental overhaul of the system resulted in a sharp decline in actual film-making. Setting up the new assessment system of applications took considerable time and the evaluation process became more substantial, too. The first films supported by the Film Fund are expected by 2013.

The turnover of art trade was constantly growing in Hungary and the total auction sales reached 8 632 million HUF by 2008 (source: OTP Bank műkincspiac). In the absence of regular statistics, the effects of the financial crisis are still disputed in the branch.

Festivals represent an increasingly important sector of the cultural industries. The 319 registered festivals (see chapter 4.3) had an accumulated annual turnover of about 22.7 billion HUF (ca. EUR 75 million), serving 1.42 million paying members of the public in 2011. These figures do not include the two outstanding events in the country: the Budapest Spring Festival and Sziget (Island). This latter is a rock festival on an island in the Danube, in Budapest, established in 1993, held during one week in August each year. Besides being a profit-making undertaking, the programme offers diversity, with a large number of non-profit causes represented with tents and desks; also there are stages for contemprary music and dance productions etc. Sziget Festival was voted best major European festival by Festival Awards Europe in 2011. In 2012 only a slight drop was recorded after the 2009 peak of 390 000.

No data is available on the turnover of other cultural industries like applied arts, folk art, postcards etc.

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