The mass media in the

Czech Republic The Czech Republic, or simply Czechia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Historically known as Bohemia, it is bordered by Austria to the south, Germany to the west, Poland to the northeast, and Slovakia to the southeast. The ...

refers to mass communication methods through broadcasting, publishing, and the Internet and their influence on population.

History

In November 1989, Czechoslovakia returned to a liberal democracy through the peaceful "

Velvet Revolution The Velvet Revolution ( cs, Sametová revoluce) or Gentle Revolution ( sk, Nežná revolúcia) was a non-violent transition of power in what was then Czechoslovakia, occurring from 17 November to 28 November 1989. Popular demonstrations agains ...

" (led by

Václav Havel Václav Havel (; 5 October 193618 December 2011) was a Czech statesman, author, poet, playwright, and former dissident. Havel served as the last president of Czechoslovakia from 1989 until the dissolution of Czechoslovakia in 1992 and then ...

and his

Civic Forum The Civic Forum (Czech: ''Občanské fórum'', OF) was a political movement in the Czech part of Czechoslovakia, established during the Velvet Revolution in 1989. The corresponding movement in Slovakia was called Public Against Violence ( Slovak ...

). In the following years the country went through a rapid economic transformation. This also affected the media that became free of the heavy-handed control of the

Communist Party of Czechoslovakia The Communist Party of Czechoslovakia ( Czech and Slovak: ''Komunistická strana Československa'', KSČ) was a communist and Marxist–Leninist political party in Czechoslovakia that existed between 1921 and 1992. It was a member of the Comint ...

and were able to develop in a competitive environment. However, even before the Velvet Revolution and despite the persecutions, there were illegally published magazines within the

Samizdat Samizdat (russian: самиздат, lit=self-publishing, links=no) was a form of dissident activity across the Eastern Bloc in which individuals reproduced censored and underground makeshift publications, often by hand, and passed the document ...

phenomenon, which allowed for the circulation of dissident ideas among people who possessed positions of cultural power and authority. Václav Havel – the last president of Czechoslovakia from

1989 File:1989 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The Cypress structure collapses as a result of the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, killing motorists below; The proposal document for the World Wide Web is submitted; The Exxon Valdez oil tanker runs ...

until its

dissolution Dissolution may refer to: Arts and entertainment Books * ''Dissolution'' (''Forgotten Realms'' novel), a 2002 fantasy novel by Richard Lee Byers * ''Dissolution'' (Sansom novel), a 2003 historical novel by C. J. Sansom Music * Dissolution, in mu ...

in 1992 – was one of them. Since the Soviet Union’s dissolution, most Czech media outlets have been owned by non-Czech western companies. This situation changed after the global economic recession of 2008, when many of them were acquired by Czech firms. In early 2014, eight out of the ten most influential figures in the media were Czech or Slovak.

Media outlets

Print and online media

Czech Republic has four main daily newspapers:

Lidové noviny ''Lidové noviny'' (''People's News'', or ''The People's Newspaper'', ) is a daily newspaper published in Prague, the Czech Republic. It is the oldest Czech daily still in print, and a newspaper of record.Mladá fronta DNES ''Mladá fronta Dnes'' (''Young Front Today''), also known as ''MF DNES'' or simply ''Dnes'' (''Today''), is a daily newspaper in the Czech Republic.Právo (with a centre-left political position) and

Blesk ''Blesk'' is a daily tabloid newspaper published in Prague, the Czech Republic. Its name translates as ''lightning''. History and profile ''Blesk'' was first published on 14 April 1991. In 1992, it launched a weekly edition published on Sundays ...

, all based in Prague. Both Lidové noviny and Mladá fronta DNES are a part of the

MAFRA Mafra is a Czech media group that publishes printed and internet media, headquartered in Prague, Czech Republic. It is a subsidiary of Agrofert holding conglomerate owned by trust of Andrej Babiš, the former Prime Minister of the Czech Repu ...

publishing group, owned by Andrej Babiš, the former Prime Minister of the Czech Republic. As of 2018, the MAFRA group is a part of a trust fund along with other Babiš's companies.
Blesk, a tabloid newspaper, with more than 1 million readers per average issue is the most-read national daily newspaper. Blesk’s publisher

Czech News Center Czech News Center a.s. (previously known as Ringier Axel Springer CZ a.s.) is one of the largest media houses in the Czech Republic. Overview The company publishes several daily newspapers (Blesk, Aha! and Sport), many printed magazines, online ...

also publishes Aha!, another tabloid newspaper which focuses on the news about the Czech celebrities. Overall the country accounts for 7 print news outlets and over 20 online news portals.
There has been a decline in circulation on Czech daily newspapers since 2009, which slowed down in 2016. In the same year Seznam Zpravy and Info.cz were launched. The first one, a news site combining daily video, text-based news and video commentaries, was introduced by the country’s leading web portal and second-biggest search engine Seznam.cz and has quickly become the top online news media in the country. On the other hand, Info.cz was launched by the

as a news server with the aim of emphasising quality information.
Finally, the

Czech News Agency The Czech News Agency ( cs, Česká tisková kancelář), abbreviated to ČTK, is a national public service news agency in the Czech Republic. It publishes in Czech and English. It discontinued its Slovak language service on 1 January 2011. F ...

(''Česká tisková kancelář'' or ''ČTK'' in Czech), previously the national state press agency, is the first and main Czech media with domestic and foreign information services. As it is not financed with state budget, its income derives from selling news to subscribers.

Television and radio

Commercial television has a major place in the Czech media landscape and attracts almost half of the total advertising spend. Before the collapse of communism, the only broadcaster in Czech Republic was the

Czechoslovak Television Czech Television ( cs, Česká televize, italics=no ; abbreviation: ČT) is a public television broadcaster in the Czech Republic, broadcasting seven channels. Established after the Velvet Revolution in 1992, it is the successor to Czechoslov ...

, which was transformed into the public service broadcaster “

Czech Television Czech Television ( cs, Česká televize, italics=no ; abbreviation: ČT) is a public television broadcaster in the Czech Republic, broadcasting seven channels. Established after the Velvet Revolution in 1992, it is the successor to Czechoslov ...

” in 1992. Czech Television operates two terrestrial public broadcast channels: mainstream CT1 and cultural channel CT2, while CT24 (for news) is a digital public channel. The first national commercial licence was granted to Television Nova in 1993. The TV station soon gained a dominant position on the television market managing to keep it so far.

Prima televize Prima televize (previously Prima family, originally Premiéra) is a Czech private television station. Its channel is broadcast from Prague. Its current owner is FTV Prima, spol. s. r. o., which is majority-owned by Czech investment firm GES, in ...

is the second private national TV channel. Broadcast media regulatory authority is the Council for Radio and Television Broadcasting (RRTV), while public-service ČT is regulated by its own council.

Legal framework

Freedom of the press and freedom of speech are guaranteed by the

Charter of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms The Charter of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms ( cs, Listina základních práv a svobod, sk, Listina základných práv a slobôd) is a document enacted in 1991 by the Czechoslovak Federative Republic and currently continued as part of the cons ...

. In Division Two of the Charter, Article 17, these expression rights are defined: however, the Charter prohibits speech that might infringe on national security, individual rights, public health, or morality. Defamation is still a crime in the country, although in 2005 the

Constitutional Court A constitutional court is a high court that deals primarily with constitutional law. Its main authority is to rule on whether laws that are challenged are in fact unconstitutional, i.e. whether they conflict with constitutionally established ...

ruling found that value judgement is legally protected. Cross-ownership in the media industry is legally limited under the Law on Radio and Television Broadcasting No. 231 of 2001, which defines the license and regulation policy for broadcasting and the role of Council for Radio and Television Broadcasting. However, these ownership restrictions do not apply to foreign ownership and are considered to be “minimal” by some observers. Other important regulations are the Press Law (No. 46/200

the Act on Czech Television No
483
and the Act on Czech Radio No
484
Both began to apply in 1991 and have been amended several times. They provide on the so-called “small” councils that control only Czech Radio and Czech TV (ČT). Moreover, Law No. 106 o
1999
regulates the Free Access to Information, Law No. 45 of 1995 regulates Advertisements and the discipline regarding copyright is provided by Law No. 35 o
1996

Media freedom and censorship

In 2021 Reporters without Borders (RSF) ranked Czechia 40 out of 180 countries in its 2021 World Press Freedom Index, down from 13 in 2015. However RSF also underlined the fact that in recent years there had been a “rise of the oligarchs” in the media landscape, and stated that the public broadcaster

"is facing an upheaval after some of the members of its supervisory board were replaced by well-known figures who are very critical of investigative reporting". In its 2016 report, Freedom House stated that criminal defamation, concentrated media ownership as well as ownership of media by politicians as the main obstacles for media freedom. In 2021 Freedom House stated that Prime Minister Andrej Babiš had been increasing his control over Czech media since 2013, when he bought Mafra media group. During the Covid-19 pandemic Mafra benefited disproportionately from state aid. Some notable incidents concerning censorship and media freedom took place in the country: * Legislative ambiguities and contradictions emerged at the time of the banning of Adolf Hitler's ''Mein Kampf'' , in 2000. * In 2003 Karel Srba, a former general secretary of the Czech Foreign Ministry, has been convicted of plotting to murder – an investigative reporter of daily newspaper Mlada Fronta Dnes who had been writing about corruption inside the Ministry. * In 2011, a raid by military police took place in the offices of Czech Television in Prague. * In 2017, a leaked audio recording caught the leader of

ANO 2011 ANO 2011, often shortened to simply ANO ("Yes" in English), the initials meaning Action of Dissatisfied Citizens ( cs, Akce nespokojených občanů), is a populist political party in the Czech Republic. The party was founded by Andrej Babiš. Hi ...

party, former Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Andrej Babiš, instructing a journalist on how to attack his political rivals. Many European parliamentarians condemned the alleged actions of Andrej Babiš, but also stressed that this case resembles more a failure of a single politician, rather than a manifestation of the government’s systematic abuse of media.

Disinformation

According to the Prague Security Studies Institute, there is a pro-Russian

disinformation Disinformation is false information deliberately spread to deceive people. It is sometimes confused with misinformation, which is false information but is not deliberate. The English word ''disinformation'' comes from the application of the L ...

campaign originating from numerous pro-Russian websites, social media communities, printed periodicals as well as radio broadcasts targeting Czechs and Slovaks. Following the

2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine On 24 February 2022, in a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War, which began in 2014. The invasion has resulted in tens of thousands of deaths on both sides. It has caused Europe's largest refugee crisis since World War II. ...

, the private association CZ.NIC, which administers the .cz web domains, blocked 8 websites considered to be used for Russian propaganda. David Kotora, from

Transparency International Transparency International e.V. (TI) is a German registered association founded in 1993 by former employees of the World Bank. Based in Berlin, its nonprofit and non-governmental purpose is to take action to combat global corruption with civil ...

Czech Republic, confirmed that the sites blocked have been used by Russia to spread propaganda for many years. He however also warned against censorship type of measures that should be limited in time in order not to stifle the freedom of speech.

Media ownership

Under the leadership of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, all mass media in Czechoslovakia were governed by the state, state organisations or political parties. Since the Soviet Union's dissolution, most Czech newspapers used to be owned by non-Czech western conglomerates: until 2007, 70% of Czech magazines and newspapers were owned by German and Swis
corporations
The process of the media returning to Czech ownership started with the 2008 financial crisis. The restructuring of ownership culminated in 2015 when the German Verlagsgruppe Passau, the last major non-Czech European media group in the country, left the market: it sold its local publishing house

Vltava Labe Media Vltava Labe Media (formerly Vltava-Labe-Press) is a Czech publishing house - the second biggest in the Czech Republic. Since November 2015 it belongs to investment company Penta Investments which acquired it from the German publishing groupe Verla ...

Penta Investments Penta is a Central Europe investment group founded in 1994 in Slovakia by Czech Marek Dospiva and Slovaks Jaroslav Haščák, Juraj Herko, Martin Kúšik and Jozef Oravkin. Today, the group actively develops companies and projects, primarily ...

, which owns media holdings both in the Czech Republic and in Slovakia. Despite this media ownership turmoil, research shows that journalists are not affected by the ownership change and tend to view journalism ethics and the ability of journalism to exert power more seriously than before. The new ownership structure of Czech media led to an increase in live news coverage, tabloid-style content and so-called ''Google journalism'', although investigative journalism is still strong in the country. On the other hand, the increase of the ownership concentration presents a threat to the media pluralism of the country. Andrej Babiš, former Czech Prime Minister, owns two of the most influential daily newspapers ( ''Lidové Noviny'' and ''Mlada Fronta Dnes'') and one of the most popular news website ''iDnes.cz''. However, some experts consider the Czech Republic to be one of the hubs in the EU territory for the few Pan-European media companies controlling large part of broadcasting market in Europe.

References

{{Media of Europe Czech