In 1921, Robert B. Howell was sent by U.S. Postmaster General Will Hays to review radio developments in Europe. In this extract from the full article, Howell reviewed the Budapest "Telefon Hirmondó", which used telephone lines, and had been in operation since 1893.
Popular Science Monthly, October, 1922, page 66:
Why I Believe in Government Radio
Hungary's "Telephone Newspaper"
"The Hungarians have done little with the radiotelephone, but in Budapest there is a highly interesting development in the form of a telephone newspaper that is now in its twenty-eighth year of publication. This enterprise consists of 42 party lines, serving some 6000 subscribers. Each station has two or more receivers, but no transmitting apparatus. It is the stentor at the central office who does all the talking over this system of wires, and is heard by all subscribers at one and the same time. The transmission of news begins at nine o'clock in the morning and is carried on throughout the day in accord with a fixed schedule, so that any one interested in a particular class of information knows just when to listen in. In the afternoon a short story is offered, or a chapter from a continued story. At four-thirty the concert of the Imperial Band begins, transmitters being placed about the band stand. While in the offices of this unique newspaper, about five o'clock one afternoon, I heard the stentor announcing the personnel of the artists who were to sing at the Budapest Opera House that evening, and later, at the home of the manager of this newspaper, I enjoyed the privilege of listening to Wagner's 'Die Walküre,' in common with other subscribers throughout the city."