We are the Center for Sustainable Media, a think-tank and consultancy working with digital news publishers, media funders, policymakers and other stakeholders to improve the financial sustainability of independent newsrooms in Central and Eastern Europe and beyond.
We advise publishers on audience revenues, commercial partnerships, business, product and content development and choosing the right technology. We help build and analyze audience surveys, build pricing models and help create campaigns.
We work with media funders on investment strategies, partner selection, due diligence, and program implementation.
We talk to decision-makers and key stakeholders to secure fair, stable and equitable funding for independent media companies and to push to introduce new funding mechanisms like investment subsidies and consumption incentives.
What is the Media Finance Monitor?
The “Media Finance Monitor” is a weekly newsletter focusing on media funding in Europe and beyond. It catalogues all the latest funding opportunities for news publishers, like grants by the European Commission, impact investment initiatives and other financing options. It also discusses the latest in audience revenues, recommends articles and studies and features interviews/essays about some essential aspects of media funding.
Our Team
Peter Erdelyi is the founding director of the Center for Sustainable Media. He is a media executive from Budapest, Hungary, with over 25 years of experience in journalism and media management. He consults for the Media Development Investment Fund and teaches digital media strategy at ELTE University in Budapest. As a Fellow at the Reuters Institute at the University of Oxford, he researched digital audience revenue strategies in countries where the media environment is under pressure. Over the past two decades, he has been involved in launching and running various digital outlets in Hungary and has served on the Executive Board of the European Digital Media Observatory. He holds an MSc from the London School of Economics.
Miklos Rozsa is the co-founder of the Center for Sustainable Media. He is a Budapest-based grant and development expert who works with media companies, NGOs, SMEs and large corporations from the R&D sector. He and his team led the award and successful implementation of more than EUR 20 million in grant funding over the past two decades. He has been involved in the media sector since the mid-2000s and managed the publishing house of EurActiv.hu, the Brussels-based Hungarian-language news portal. Most recently, he has been running large-scale EU and US-funded media development projects in Hungary.
Daniel Baranya is a Senior Associate at the Center for Sustainable Media (CSM), with a background in project management and grant administration spanning nearly ten years. Previously, he worked as a Grants Officer at the Open Society Foundations, overseeing compliance for a range of projects from local to international scales. His experience includes collaborations with the Human Rights Initiative at Central European University and various NGOs, which have honed his ability to bridge donor and applicant perspectives in grant-making. He holds an M.A. in International Relations from Central European University and a B.A. in Political Science from Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest.
David Kardos is the Advocacy Director of the Center for Sustainable Media. He is a Brussels-based EU policy expert with a legal background and nearly two decades of experience in European law, justice and home affairs, rule of law, and media policy. As a former advisor and negotiator in the European Parliament, he worked on major legislative files including the Digital Services Act (DSA), the European Media Freedom Act (EMFA), the Regulation on the Transparency and Targeting of Political Advertising, and the Rule of Law Conditionality Mechanism. He also contributed to the Parliament’s report on the shrinking space for civil society and has long advocated for the protection of Roma minorities and fundamental rights. His current work focuses on securing sustainable funding for independent media and ensuring EU budgets support democratic values and public interest journalism.
Ioana Epure is an international multimedia journalist with over 10 years of experience in media production and management. She is a part-time associate at the Center for Sustainable Media and also serves as Editorial Director at PressOne, an independent Romanian media outlet. Additionally, she is a PhD candidate in Social Anthropology at Panteion University, Athens. With a background that includes extensive editorial experience and academic research on migration, Ioana has worked as a freelance journalist, collaborating with global organizations like UNHCR, Vice, and Bloomberg News. She has also served as a trainer for various journalism projects across Europe and has a strong entrepreneurial background in media and photography.
