Czech Radio

Czech Radio (Czech: Český rozhlas, ČRo) is the public radio broadcaster of the Czech Republic operating continuously since 1923. It is the oldest national radio broadcaster in continental Europe and the second-oldest in Europe after the BBC. Czech Radio was established in 1992 by the Czech Radio Act, which sets out the framework for its operation and finance. It acts as the successor to the previous state-owned Czechoslovak Radio which ceased to exist by 1992. The service broadcasts throughout the Czech Republic nationally and locally. Its four national services are Radiožurnál, Dvojka, Vltava and Plus. Czech Radio operates twelve nationwide stations and another fourteen regional stations. All ČRo stations broadcast via internet stream, digital via DAB+ and DVB, and part analog via terrestrial transmitters. It is based in Prague in a building in Vinohradská třída.

1. History


1. = Czechoslovak era =

Český rozhlas, then Československý rozhlas, was established on 18 May 1923, making its first broadcast from a scout tent in the Kbely district of Prague, under the name Radiojournal. The premises of the station changed numerous times, firstly moving to the district of Hloubětín, before later using locations in the Poštovní nákupny building, the Orbis building and the Národní dům na Vinohradech building, all in Prague. Since the moves, Czech Radio has been located in Prague in the building Vinohradská 12 since 1933. The first regular announcer of the station, who prepared and presented the news from the daily papers, was Adolf Dobrovolný. He took up the position on 17 January 1924, becoming the station's first professional radio announcer and his position was made permanent on 1 January 1925. He held the position until his death in 1934. A message broadcast on Czech Radio on 5 May 1945 brought about the start of the Prague uprising. In the same year, regional studios in the cities of Plzeň, České Budějovice, Hradec Králové and Ústí nad Labem were launched. The station was taken over by Soviet forces, after short fighting with unarmed civilians, in August 1968, in the first day of the Soviet invasion, although broadcasting managed to continue from alternative locations.

1. = Czech era =

In 1991, the Czech Radio Group changed its status and became an independent organisation, despite being publicly funded as of 2008. Czech Radio (ČRo) was established by Act of the Czech National Council (No. 484/1991 Coll.) on Czech Radio. On 1 January 1992, Czech Radio was established as a public radio with property transferred from Czechoslovak Radio. The headquarters were set up at Vinohradská 12 in Prague, where the old Czechoslovak Radio was based at. Operation of regional stations in the Czech Republic was also transferred. On 1 January 1993, Czech Radio became a member of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU). In 1999, Czech Radio launched an experimental digital radio broadcast in Prague. An envisaged new premises for Czech Radio, a 30-storey building in the district of Pankrác which took 22 years to build at a cost of 1.35 billion Czech koruna, was sold after the construction phrase in 1996 as it was deemed too big for the station's requirements. In 2002, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty station stopped broadcasting in the Czech Republic, with the broadcast rebranded as Czech Radio 6 under the Czech Radio group. In October 2005, digital television broadcasting was launched on DVB-T, with some of the ČRo's circuits being included in the first multiplex. A large expansion of the number of ČRo stations took place in 2005. At that time, the D-dur, Rádio Česko and Leonardo circuits began broadcasting, and in 2006, ČRo Radio Wave station was added. Czech Radio launched a new logo in 2013, featuring the letter R with stripes, at a cost of 2.2 million Czech koruna. The organisation marked 90 years of existence in 2013, celebrating the occasion with a 48-hour broadcast including 90 interviews interspersed with news reports every half-hour. The event, which took place on Wenceslas Square, set a new national record for the longest uninterrupted radio broadcast. In the same year, ČRo 6, ČRo Radio Czech Republic and ČRo Leonardo were cancelled and replaced by the new station ČRo Plus. At the end of 2021, the broadcasting of the stations Radiožurnál, Dvojka and Plus on the medium and long wave bands was terminated, and thus the broadcasting of Czech Radio via AM was terminated altogether. In 2024, the regional station Český rozhlas Region was renamed Český rozhlas Střední Čechy.

1. Radio stations

Czech Radio operates 12 national stations and 14 regional stations. All ČRo stations broadcast via internet streaming, most of them digitally via DAB+ and DVB, some of them analogue via terrestrial transmitters.

1. = Digital stations =


1. = Regional stations =

Regional stations broadcast daily from 5 a.m. to 7 p.m. (ČRo Brno, Plzeň and Ostrava until 7.30 p.m.) with several breaks. In these breaks, in the evening and at night, the programmes of the Central Bohemian ČRo Střední Čechy are broadcast nationwide.

1. = Former stations =

Broadcast of Radio 6, Leonardo, Radio Česko all ended in 2013.

1. Organization


1. = Finance =

The majority of Czech Radio's income comes from radio licence fees, which have been set at CZK 45 per month since 2005. ČRo's annual income from these fees in 2019 amounted to CZK 2.09 billion, or 91% of Czech Radio's total income of CZK 2.29 billion that year. The remaining few percent of the income is made up of revenues from Czech Radio's own business activities, which include, for example, the sale of limited advertising time, sponsorship revenues and licensing of recordings. According to Act No. 231/2001 Coll., on the Operation of Radio and Television Broadcasting and on Amendments to Other Acts, the time reserved for advertising and teleshopping may not exceed 3 minutes per day on each Czech Radio station, and a maximum of 5 minutes per day for local stations. Commercial messages may not be included in news, journalistic and educational programmes, with the exception of cultural and sports broadcasts, if advertising is part of them in terms of the conditions of the broadcasting rights.

1. = Logos =

The original logo of Czech Radio was used between 1992 and 1995. Since 1996, the radio has had a logo created by the Men On The Moon agency, which won the Logo of the Year award in 1997. Since 2013, Czech Radio has used the logo designed by Studio Marvil.

1. See also

Czech Television, the Czech publicly funded television broadcaster Battle for Czech Radio in World War II The vanished bells project

1. References


1. = Bibliography =

Ješutová, Eva (2003). Od mikrofonu k posluchačům: Z osmi desetiletí českého rozhlasu [From the microphone to listeners: Eighty years with Czech Radio] (in Czech). Prague: Czech Radio. p. 668. ISBN 80-86762-00-9. Köpplová, Barbara (2003). Dějiny českých médií v datech: Rozhlas – Televize – Mediální právo (in Czech). Prague: Karolinum. p. 462. ISBN 80-246-0632-1. Hanáčková, K (2023). "Public radio in the Czech Republic, its current and future position in society from the perspective of millenials" (PDF). Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University. Content in this edit is translated from the existing Czech Wikipedia article at cs:Český rozhlas; see its history for attribution.

1. External links

Official website (in Czech) LyngSat Logo – Czechia – Logos of Czech Radio stations