Index

What is Index?

Index is a Hungarian general news portal at index.hu. Its footer carries the notice “© 1999-2026 Index.hu Zrt.” and links to an imprint, advertising and data-protection documents; its navigation includes a sport section.^[1]

Its ownership is dated. Telex reported on 23 November 2020 that “az Indamedia Network Zrt. megveszi az Index.hu-t kiadó cég részvényeit az azokat eddig birtokló alapítványtól” — Indamedia Network Zrt. was buying the shares of Index's publisher from the Magyar Fejlődésért Alapítvány, which had held them.^[6] A named monitoring body has published on the market that outlet sits in: the Centre for Media Pluralism and Media Freedom's Media Pluralism Monitor, in its 2026 Hungary assessment, puts the country at 85 per cent risk on Market Plurality and states that “Media ownership in Hungary is highly concentrated, which distorts the market and threatens the sustainability of news media”.^[7]

The site is also the subject of one of the most documented episodes in recent Hungarian media history. On 24 July 2020 Index published a service notice recording that its lead editor and two deputy editors-in-chief, together with more than eighty staff, were leaving after the board president dismissed editor-in-chief Szabolcs Dull.^[2] The site continued publishing; a number of those who left founded Telex that October.^[3]

What does Index cover?

Index's sports desk reports domestic football alongside other sports. Its match report of 19 October 2025 from the Megyeri út records the Újpest–Ferencváros meeting as the 303rd official derby between the clubs, the previous 302 forming what it calls the örökmérleg, the all-time record, and dates the rivalry from 1905.^[4] The site's front page carries ice hockey and other sports alongside football.^[1]

It also reports the government machinery around sport. On 25 May 2022 Index reported, from the Magyar Közlöny, that the defence minister's responsibilities had been extended to cover “sportpolitika, a sportlétesítmény-fejlesztés, valamint a kiemelt nemzetközi sport- és sportdiplomáciai események szervezése”, and that Ádám Schmidt would head the sport state secretariat.^[5] Reporting a change of ministerial responsibility from the official gazette fixes a date for a governing arrangement.

How large is Index's audience?

No audited Hungarian digital-audience figure for index.hu could be retrieved for this page. Traffic estimators are not audited measurement and no estimate is substituted here.

The only figures this page can state about the organisation are its own published ones: the footer notice “© 1999-2026 Index.hu Zrt.”,^[1] and the staff numbers in its 24 July 2020 service notice, which recorded the departure of the editorial leadership and more than eighty colleagues.^[2]

Hungarian television audiences are measured by Nielsen Közönségmérés and published by the regulator; online audiences are measured on a separate currency, and no current audited figure for index.hu was obtained. That is a limitation of the evidence retrieved, not a statement that no such measurement exists.

Since when has Index existed?

The site's own footer dates the title to 1999 in the form “© 1999-2026 Index.hu Zrt.”^[1] That is a copyright notice rather than an independently sourced founding date, and it is reported here as the site's own claim.

The publishing company named in that notice is Index.hu Zrt. A separate, dated event in the title's history is the July 2020 change of editorial leadership, which Index itself recorded on 24 July 2020 and which is quoted above.^[2] Founding, incorporation and a change of editorial leadership are three different dates, and only the last two are documented here from retrieved sources.

A consequence of the 2020 departures is dated separately again: Telex, founded by journalists who left, records its own launch as 2 October 2020.^[3]

Why does Index matter in Hungary's sport?

Index supplies dated, checkable counts for fixtures that otherwise circulate without provenance. Its report of the October 2025 Budapest derby gives a specific match number and an all-time record for a fixture running since 1905; that count is a single secondary source, not a federation record.^[4]

It also covers the administrative side: the 2022 transfer of the sport portfolio to the defence minister was reported by Index from the official gazette, with the responsibilities quoted in the instrument's own wording.^[5] For a reader of Hungary, that is the kind of item that fixes when a governing arrangement changed.

Its own institutional history is part of the Hungarian media record and is stated here with its date and in the outlet's own words, without characterisation.^[2] The service notice of 24 July 2020 is the outlet's account of its own staff's reasons, and it is quoted rather than adopted; no body has been cited here as having made a finding about it.

For sport, the practical consequence is that a reader has two independently published accounts of the same Hungarian sporting and administrative stories — this one, and the reader-funded site founded that October by journalists who left.^[3]