In the global history of television, Eastern European television during the socialist period long remained an under-researched area. This began to change only in the past two decades, with new studies and groundbreaking monographs, such as those by Anikó Imre’s TV Socialism, or Sabina Mihelj’ and Simon Huxtable’s From Media Systems to Media Cultures: Understanding Socialist Television. Television during socialism is now analyzed in more nuanced and multifaceted ways – not merely as a propaganda medium but also as a crucial tool in shaping and experiencing everyday life.

Television made its breakthrough in Eastern Europe during the 1960s, albeit at different paces in different countries. As noted in Mihelj and Huxtable’s monograph, by 1960, there was one TV set for every 17 residents in East Germany and Czechoslovakia, compared to almost 100 in Hungary and 1,577 in Bulgaria. By 1965, there was one TV for every 5–6 residents in East Germany and Czechoslovakia, and one for every 12–15 residents in Poland, Hungary, and the Soviet Union. By 1970, similar ratios were evident in Bulgaria, Romania, and Yugoslavia. While the availability of programming – both fictional and non-fictional – varied significantly, television had become a central feature of the modernizing Eastern European world by the end of the decade.

During this transformative decade, as television rapidly entered Eastern European homes and became an integral part of the daily lives of millions, it emerged as a pioneering medium for rediscovering and understanding the world. The television culture of this era was shaped by a sense of familiarity, intimacy, and communal experience. Television connected people, made the unfamiliar familiar, and fostered a sense of community. The images of families gathered around the TV set in their living rooms or neighbors watching television together in communal settings (as depicted in János Herskó’s 1960 Hungarian film comedy Két emelet boldogság [Two Floors of Happiness]) were at once stereotypes, visions, and reflections of real experiences.

Socialist-era television aimed to educate, inform, and entertain. It propagated ideas by educating and entertained through propaganda. While popular memory often recalls the everyday wisdom of characters staring directly into the camera in serials like Szomszédok (Neighbours), the role of television as a teacher for millions of viewers was most prominent in the 1960s. It sought to engage all age groups, aiming to educate, activate, and entertain the widest possible audience. In doing so, the petty realism of „this is the world”-approach was often intertwined with the vision of „this is how our world should be.”

Socialist television viewed itself as a balanced and enlightened medium that highlighted and corrected the minor and major flaws of everyday life with humor and wise understanding, while also presenting paths for self-improvement and community building. Its ideal protagonist was the „everyday hero” – who is active, responsible for herself/himself and for the community. This approach marked a departure from the rigid depictions of the Socialist Realist stories of the 1950s. Humor and playfulness were used to rewrite these templates, although from the 1970s onward, satire increasingly took their place. This satire presented flawed, sometimes unsuccessful heroes in ever more absurd situations and stories, as seen in rarely remembered series like Dániel (concentrating on the satirical depiction of the everyday adventures of a super-agitated middle-aged man) from the 1980s.

The pedagogical tone of the earlier mentioned Neighbours exemplifies how this educational attitude persisted well into the 1980s. Even into the 1990s, as seen in series such as Frici, a vállalkozó szellem (Frici, the Entrepreneurial Spirit), which offered a capitalist-era take on moral and practical lessons, this tradition survived the political transition.

Finally, the everyday wisdom of Neighbours characters like Uncle Taki, the elderly taxi-driver, acting as the loveable grandfather of the audience, demonstrates that didacticism was not merely a tool for cultural-political agendas but could also reflect creative visions and, importantly, fulfill audience expectations. While it would be an overstatement to attribute the success of Neighbours solely to this factor of cautious approach to avoid political activity and engagement, and restraint vision and focus on everyday life, the persistence of such a pedagogical style underscores its enduring relevance.

The television culture of Hungarian socialism was rooted in everyday life, yet the redefinition of the everyday constantly posed challenges to it.