"Does the name Jenő Csiszár have a good ring to it in the media?"

"It's not my job to judge that, but the fact that the owners of the new radio came to see me in Szigliget, where I live as a pensioner, proves that they acknowledge my achievements."

"So is this the great comeback of the pensioner living in Szigliget?"

"Although I wasn't seen in celebrity shows and tried to avoid appearing in the tabloids, I did participate in the work of radio stations and television stations, in the background."

"As someone who once worked as a radio presenter and had quite a large number of fans, do you sympathize with the staff of the radio stations that have been lost?"

"Look, a legal decision had been made. Maybe it is painful for some, but to keep some facts secret and to deliberately spread false information, thereby taking advantage of sitting behind a microphone - well, that is not to my taste. What's more, if the people in question are supposedly the best in the business, then all the new owners will want to employ them. It would be quite difficult to greet the listeners on the first morning if you have previously showered abuse on the new owners because of imaginary grievances. Let me just add that earlier, the two radio stations which have now lost were lobbying for there to be no tender. No one protested this loudly at the time."

"You have worked for Juventus and Petőfi (radio stations), for MTV (the Hungarian national public service television channel), for RTL Klub and TV2 (commercial television channels): you chose to, or were forced to leave on several occasions."

"In most cases, I chose to leave of my own accord, when I no longer felt at home. I quickly learned that not only was it possible to say no at times, but also necessary if one wanted to remain authentic and credible."

"What will your job be at Class FM?"

"The owners are interested in the opinion of two or three of us regarding the staff, the structure, developing the radio's message and building the brand. This is a profession that must be learned. All new owners have ideas and plans, but they don't want to fail. That is why you always have to take former market conditions and the movement of the market into consideration."

"How do the initial disputes - with political undertones - affect the start of the new station?"

"I take no notice of them. Everyone knows that the National Radio and Television Commission (Országos Rádió és Televízió Testület ORTT) is made up of delegates of the various parties, and that they make the decisions concerning radio frequencies. In the current situation, our task is to organise the best radio station for our listeners, with the equipment at hand, and with the very short period of time at our disposal, keeping in mind that the investors should also profit from it financially. The most important task is to reassure the listeners, and then the market. We could have left this phase out completely if there had been a normal transaction. The market is biding its time and waiting to see who these people are and what they want. The great multinational companies will decide about next year's budget for advertising in November, and from the point of view of advertising, January and February are off-season. We could calculate with these market forces, but we had to squeeze in some reassuring periods which preceded these."

"What will we hear on November 19th, at one minute past midnight? The same as earlier?"

"Anything can happen, but one thing is for sure: I'm not participating in this radio station for myself. The Hungarian market has been slow in reacting in the past twenty years, so we're going to retune the supply slowly, step by step. We don't want to take anything away from the listeners, we want to give. Radio listeners are sensitive and must be handled with care. In my opinion, the radio has become rigid in the past ten years, and has stiffened into its present form where the listeners were no longer that important."

"But they were, for their musical tastes were gauged, and the number of listeners was measured."

"Of the many different styles of music that commercial radio stations specializing in music had at their disposal, only one or two were actually played. What does the average listener say? That they're playing the same songs again and again. Radio format is a precise, exactly measured professional guide."

"Does MR2-Petőfi - which does not have as many listeners as the commercial radio stations - do it the right way?"

"I once had a programme called My father's world and it had the largest number of listeners in Hungary at the time. Whichever radio station I worked for, I always had to argue about what kind of music could be played, and they always told me that this or that was no good because it was underground, and not mainstream music. Then a few years later, a group of young people established Est FM, which soon became a cult radio station. To some extent, MR2-Petőfi is the continuation of Est FM, and it's no wonder that it is the third most popular radio station on the market."

"Does a commercial radio station also have to "educate" its listeners?"

"Let's not deceive ourselves, commercial radio is just like any other business enterprise, like a restaurant, for example. Its aim is to be a Michelin star restaurant, and it wants as many people to come and eat there as possible. You have to use the best ingredients and work with the best chefs, watch the trends, and if you're lucky, your enterprise will be successful. Of course I'll be proud of what I do, but the most important thing is that I will be able to feed my children from the profit."

"And do you manage to smuggle in a special dish from time to time?"

"The two commercial radio stations are in a monopolistic situation, so they could have been a little bit braver. They could have paid a little bit more attention to what is happening in the world in 2009 regarding radio broadcasting. It's not about educating, it's more about widening the selection, so you don't have to search on the Slovenian or the Austrian radio, or on some pirate radio from Kuala Lumpur, via the Internet. If you portion it out well, then you win new listeners without losing old ones. 93 percent of the total broadcasting time will be made up of music, 30 percent of which will be Hungarian music. This is primarily a moral issue, but by now it has also become a business interest as well, since the quality of Hungarian music is getting better and better and it's becoming more and more popular on the market."

"Which Hungarian groups did you have in mind for broadening the selection?"

"That is the responsibility of Pál Szever, the musical director, but I think all kinds of music could be played, from Erzsi Kovács to Žagar's alternative dance music."

"Who sing in English, incidentally..."

"Then I could name Zuboly. But there will be a large range, and that's the most important thing. Actually, I think both commercial radio stations were "followers": they didn't make hits, or introduce new songs."

"Sláger radio avowedly played great hits of the past."

"I think there was only one traditional oldies radio in Hungary, and that was Sztár FM."

"What do you listen to while driving your car?"

"Lots of things, for example the Austrian radio FM4. But in the past few months I've been listening to Danubius and quite often I lost my temper. How is it possible that the only thing they can play from 1994 is Ace of Base? I mean, really. But I did hear some good things, too, so I suggested we adopt some of them."

"Who will hallmark the station?"

"I'm not revealing any names, for we shall be part of the competition as of November 19th, and brand building would weaken if we were to use up all our ammunition."

"What kind of public service content will there be beside the music?"

"There will be two 15-minute news blocks a day, apart from the five-minute news every hour. I'm sure it's possible to give news for 15 minutes while being informative, authentic and service-oriented, and at the same time not damage the image of the commercial radio. We will also back NGO initiatives and new, emerging talents."

"The owners of Class FM are partly identical with those of Heti Válasz, consequently, the radio station is labelled as right-leaning. Is it possible that the news will be "biased"?"

"The investors are risking their own money, and if they wanted to serve the interests of one or the other side, they wouldn't profit from that. For heaven's sake, do you really think people in the corner store will be willing to listen to political half hours on their favourite commercial radio station? Billions of forints would be needed, none of the parties would want, or can afford, to spend that much."

"But it's possible to manipulate the news just a little bit."

"A market-oriented medium that doesn't offer unbiased news will not be a successful, profitable enterprise, for people won't tune into it. I'm not familiar with politics, and I don't want to be, either."

"If journalists are grouped as right-leaning or left-leaning, why then are those working for radio stations considered such an elegant caste that they can stay out of all this?"

"Up till now, I have been called a Communist "hireling" of the Jews by the right, and a Fascist by the left, and everything else you can think of. As a pensioner living in Szigliget, tell me, where should I stand? Naturally, when elections are held every four years, I know who to vote for. It's a personal matter, just like my religious belief is. But I live in this country and I don't like it that politics has divided families and friends."

"The television programme called Heti Hetes, which, initially, you used to be the host of, continues to divide viewers."

"Heti Hetes is a commercial programme with a more or less stable number of viewers. If this weren't the case, it would have ended long ago. When it was first broadcast, everyone was still trying to find their place and fooled around accordingly. The fact that the programme has turned into what it is now proves one thing: that Hungarian society has irreversibly been torn in two, and this is what is reflected in Heti Hetes."

"Have you now found your own place in this narrow market - which you characterised as petty cocks crowing on a pathetic dunghill?"

"Even when I said this, I meant that I was one of the petty cocks. The minute we Hungarian media workers leave these 93 thousand square kilometres (the area of Hungary), no one knows what great stars we are. This was what I wanted to leave behind. There was no longer a challenge, professionally speaking, and I didn't enjoy the "commitments" - involving tabloids - connected to my work. Maybe I have calmed down a little since then, but my personality is basically the same: I'm the one who decides which team's shirt I'll wear. If someone tries to force me to wear a shirt that I don't feel comfortable in, I leave. When they came to see me from the new radio station, all I thought was that I would give work one more chance. I have to give this team a chance. I don't know why they asked me, perhaps I was simply in the right place in someone's telephone register at the right time. There was a time when being on air and appearing on television gave me satisfaction. What gives me pleasure now is creating something together."

"Will you have a programme of your own?"

"I miss the microphone, but I will only do a programme of my own if there's room for me: if I can contribute to our success without pushing myself forward, then I won't abuse my status of advisor."

"Would you do My Father's World again?"

"That was about a period that has passed, it would be anachronistic to repeat it. I'm over fifty years old, I'm a father of two children. I don't know yet what I'd really like to do."

"What kind of values will Class FM represent?"

"Society is in such a terrible state that I believe the basic message we transmit must be positive. We must try to give hope, a feeling of goodwill and decency. Five seconds or five hours of entertainment without constraint. The way we relate to listeners should not be arrogant, we shouldn't behave as if we were superior. We'd just like to have a conversation with them."

"Like "Dear Mr. Bolgár" (Well-known journalist who has a radio programme called Let's Discuss It, on Klubrádió)?"

"We have to play music during more than 90 percent of the time available, the rest of the time we will broadcast entertaining information free of politics. If that means we can fit in a programme where our listeners can phone in, I won't try to prevent it, but there are other tools for interactivity, for example the Internet. But I must stress that this is a music station, not talk radio."

"The importance of radio stations and the income from advertising are decreasing: how then could such hysteria develop around the tender?"

"The radio is eternal; it's just our habits regarding the radio that are changing. At first, it was a family programme: the children watched the Cat's whisker diode (the crystal diode rectifier) jumping about, while the parents tried to tune to Radio Free Europe. Nowadays, people listen to the radio in the morning, in the car, on their way to work, or on the Internet while they are at work, then in the car again in the afternoon, then in the evening the radio is on in the kitchen, as a kind of background noise. And technology changes as well, for example, people listen to the radio on their mobile phones. We have to find the tools of modern technology, so that our listeners can have easy access to quality content in as many places as possible."