Hungary’s main public television channel has suspended news broadcasts, while a state radio station has been suspended entirely, in a bid to make its media “independent and trustworthy”.

The country’s former prime minister, Viktor Orbán, who was ousted in April after 16 years in power, had tightly controlled state media.

Media reforms were a key campaign promise of Hungary’s new Prime Minister Péter Magyar, who described the announcement as “the end of propaganda broadcasts.”

Both television channel M1 and radio station Kossuth temporarily suspended their broadcasts on Tuesday afternoon, with the former displaying a message saying: “Public media should not lie. We are sorry to do so for so long.”

The message, written in white on a black screen, continued: “Public media will now be reformed to be independent and trustworthy. Our news program is currently suspended. Stay tuned!”

Kossuth’s frequencies instead broadcast the classical music station Bartok Radio, according to the AFP news agency.

As Hungary’s main public radio station, Kossuth usually focuses on news, current affairs, sports and culture.

The websites of M1 and Kossuth were also down on Tuesday afternoon, AFP added.

A statement from MTVA, which runs M1, said the channel would temporarily restart in a new format without news programmes, with bulletins gradually introduced alongside a new editorial team.

Following the announcement, Magyar described it as a “historic day” that “marks the end of propaganda broadcasts on public media platforms.”

“They lied at night, they lied during the day, they lied on all wavelengths. That’s over,” he added.