Media

Communication media are the channels that spread information, opinions, and entertainment: newspapers, television, radio, websites, social networks, podcasts, newsletters. They serve four functions that mix in practice. They inform (news, results, statistics), persuade (advertising, brand messages, politics), entertain (live sports, shows, series), and set the agenda: they don’t tell you what to think, but what you’ll be thinking about today. On top of that comes the watchdog role: investigative reporting that holds power to account; and cultural transmission: values and norms, such as what behavior is okay at a stadium.

Distinguish mass media, which send one message to millions of people at once, from personal digital media, where everyone puts together their own stream. Everyone sees the same 7:30 p.m. TV news. No two people, on the other hand, see the same Instagram feed. For a marketer, these are two different games: with mass media, you buy or earn a place in one program; with personal media, you fight for a place in each person’s algorithm separately.

The history of media is a series of technological leaps, and each one shortened the path from creator to audience. Gutenberg’s printing press (around 1440) brought reading to the masses, the telegraph (1837) sent a message faster than a messenger could travel for the first time, radio in the 1920s brought live news, television from the 1930s brought pictures (the BBC in 1936, mass adoption only after the war, Czechoslovakia in 1953), the web in the 1990s brought two-way communication, and the smartphone (iPhone, 2007) brought constant connectivity with tailored content. Notice the gatekeeper: the printer, the publisher, the program director, the editor. With every leap there are fewer of them, and today nobody stands between you and a million people, only an algorithm. More in the Social Media and Sports chapters.

Traditional media (newspapers, television, radio) send one message to a large audience at once. An editor decides what gets published and sticks, at least officially, to journalistic standards. They have wide reach, but they are slow and losing younger audiences. New media (websites, streaming, social platforms, podcasts, blogs) let companies and individuals create and share content directly, without a newsroom, instantly and in both directions: the audience comments, shares, replies. Independent creators (bloggers, podcasters, YouTubers) are the third form: entry costs nothing, reach can be huge, and the content usually targets narrow communities.

How much time do Czechs give all this? The average viewer over 15 spent 3.5 hours a day watching TV (ATO-Nielsen, January to October 2024, including time-shifted viewing within three days, which makes up 11%). Internet users spend 143 minutes a day on social networks, Gen Z 220 minutes (AMI Digital Index 2025, 1,010 respondents over 15). Every day, 51% of people listen to the radio, and the most listened-to station is Radiožurnál, Czech Radio’s news station, with 748,000 listeners a day (Radioprojekt, first half of 2025). TV and social networks alone add up to almost six hours a day, not counting radio, podcasts, websites, and games.

None of these forms is dead. Television is a reach machine, especially for sports. Social networks hold younger people’s attention and are where opinions form. Creators bring trust and depth. A good media plan counts on all three and changes the mix depending on whom you’re reaching: a B2B logistics company needs LinkedIn and the trade press, a kids’ sports camp needs parents’ Instagram, an Olympic sport needs ČT sport, the public broadcaster’s sports channel. Each form has a different gatekeeper, a different price, and different measurement:

The Czech media market is small (10.9 million people) and concentrated. Television is held by three groups: Czech Television (public service: ČT1, ČT2, ČT24, ČT sport), Nova in the Kellner family’s PPF group (Nova, Nova Sport 1 to 6, and since March 10, 2025, Oneplay, which replaced O2 TV and Voyo), and Ivan Zach’s Prima. In 2025, ČT had an all-day share among viewers over 15 of 29.29%, the Nova group 27.75%, and Prima 26.78% (ATO-Nielsen): three groups, 84% of TV time. In prime time and among 15- to 54-year-olds, Nova leads.

Print and online news look similar. Mafra was bought from Agrofert in 2023 by Karel Pražák’s Kaprain group; in November 2025, Kaprain signed a contract to sell half of it to Pavel Tykač’s company Tymeprax, and in early April 2026, ÚOHS, the Czech competition authority, announced that it had approved the merger with final effect. So today Mafra is held half by Kaprain and half by Tymeprax. Czech News Center is part of Czech Media Invest, owned by Daniel Křetínský and Patrik Tkáč. Economia belongs to Zdeněk Bakala. Seznam.cz, the Czech search engine and web portal (since 1996, founded by Ivo Lukačovič), runs Novinky.cz, Seznam Zprávy, and Sport.cz, and bought the publisher Borgis with the daily Právo. According to NetMonitor, Google, Seznam, and Meta have practically the same reach (7.6 to 7.7 million real users, 88 to 89% of the internet population, May 2025), but in time spent, the global platforms lead by a wide margin.

Why does it matter? The owner doesn’t write articles, but approves the budget, appoints the editor-in-chief, and sets the priorities. On top of that, the new government is proposing to replace the license fees for Czech Television and Czech Radio with money from the state budget from 2027, which would bring public service media closer to the government (Reuters DNR 2026). Before you send a press release, know whom you’re writing to and who’s above them. Sports rights are held mainly by ČT, PPF, and Canal+, which in August 2025 agreed with Nova to give each other access to their sports channels (Premier League and WTA on Oneplay, Nova Sport 6 on Skylink).

Ownership tells you who runs a medium; the business model tells you who pays for it. Public service media (BBC, Czech Television, Czech Radio) live on license fees, with a mandate to serve the public interest. Since May 1, 2025, a household pays CZK 150 a month for ČT and CZK 55 for ČRo (previously CZK 135 and CZK 45, the first increase since 2008 and 2005, respectively), and the fees are now indexed as soon as inflation since the last increase exceeds 6%. State media are run directly by the government (Czechia has none). Private media belong to the groups from the previous section and are meant to make money. Independent newsrooms (Deník N, Hlídací pes, Voxpot) matter for plurality and investigative journalism, but they are the most financially vulnerable.

There are basically four funding models, and most outlets combine them. The advertising model: content is free, the advertiser pays, and content adapts to whatever draws clicks. Subscription and paywall: the reader pays, and the newsroom has an incentive to go deep, but only 13% of people in Czechia pay for online news (Reuters Institute, Digital News Report 2025), and 10% of listeners have paid for a specific podcast (ČRo/Median 2025). Hybrid and freemium: some content is free, premium articles cost money (Seznam Zprávy, Aktuálně.cz). Membership and crowdfunding: Patreon, Forendors, Herohero; fans pay the creator directly, and the relationship is closer than with a subscription.

Meanwhile, advertising money is growing. A record CZK 70.7 billion went into internet advertising in Czechia in 2025, 10.6% more than the year before (SPIR, the Czech internet industry association, measured by Median; a combination of rate-card and net prices), of which display advertising was CZK 51.1 billion and search CZK 18.2 billion. For 2026, SPIR estimates CZK 76 billion. The catch is where that money goes: a large part ends up with the global platforms, not with newsrooms, and AI summaries in search are starting to take visits away from newsrooms too (see the box below). The advertising market as a whole and its metrics are covered in the Advertising chapter.

Television shows how the models mix inside one company. Linear broadcasting runs on a schedule, everyone sees the same thing at the same time, and it lives on ad breaks sold according to viewership measured by the Association of Television Organizations (ATO). The broadcasting act caps the amount of advertising: commercial channels may carry at most 20% advertising between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. and between 6 p.m. and midnight, and Česká televize only on ČT2 and ČT sport, at most 0.5% of daily airtime and no more than 6 minutes an hour between 7 and 10 p.m. Video on demand (VOD) splits by who pays. A subscription without ads is called SVOD: Netflix, the Oneplay library or Prima+ Premium. Free with ads is AVOD: YouTube or basic Prima+. There is also a cheaper subscription with fewer ads, such as Prima+ Light. Between the two worlds sits catch-up viewing on IPTV services: a recording of the linear broadcast, ads included, which according to ATO made up 12.5% of all viewing in 2025. IPTV or cable is the main TV source for 54% of viewers aged 15 to 69. Since February 2026, ATO has also measured viewing outside the home and is piloting streaming data from Oneplay.

That’s why you see the same show once with ads and once without. Every episode of Survivor Česko & Slovensko 2026 was on Oneplay a day before Nova, Prima+ released the second season of Zrádci (The Traitors) a week before TV Prima, and Nova shows like SuperStar play without ads in the Oneplay library. A subscriber pays not to see ads; a TV viewer pays with attention. But linear advertising still brings in the main money: in 2024, Nova had revenue of CZK 9 billion, of which CZK 5 billion came from TV advertising and CZK 1.16 billion from internet advertising and subscriptions combined. Viewers like skipping ads in catch-up: for 32%, it’s a reason they pay for TV at all. So Prima has limited skipping since 2022, and from November 18, 2026, Nova does the same on its six free-to-air channels: of every break, you have to watch at least the first three minutes, on Oneplay and with other operators. The Oneplay library stays ad-free, and Oneplay is preparing a cheaper tier with ads. Sport works differently: the value is in the live broadcast; the Champions League runs on Oneplay on the Nova Sport channels and can be replayed for seven days.

Agenda-setting is the most cited theory about what media do to the public. In 1972, Maxwell McCombs and Donald Shaw (Public Opinion Quarterly 36/2) showed that the ranking of topics by the space and placement media give them matches the ranking of topics people consider important. So media don’t dictate your opinion; they decide what you’ll have an opinion about. You can see it in elections, in activism (#MeToo, a viral protest video), and in sports: when judo gets written about mainly in connection with Krpálek, judo is Krpálek to the public. Closely tied to the agenda is framing: the same event described as a “crash” or as a “restart” triggers a different emotion.

The second big issue is trust. The Reuters Institute measures trust in news every year, and Czechia is among the low-trust countries: 30% in 2023 (a record low), 31% in 2024, 33% in 2025, and 31% in 2026, while the world average was 37%. The most trusted brands remain the public service ČT and ČRo. At the same time, according to Reporters Without Borders, Czechia jumped in press freedom from 40th place in 2021 to 10th place in 2025, and in 2026 it holds 11th place out of 180 countries. Free but distrusted media: a paradox you work with in Czechia. Only 22% of Czechs pass news on via social networks, chat, or email (DNR 2025); most read it and don’t spread it, so don’t count on your story spreading on its own.

Trust is shifting from institutions to individuals. Joe Rogan has a bigger audience than news channels, writers are leaving newsrooms for Substack, and in 2025 Czech YouTubers and podcasters founded two professional associations (ATOM and the Association of Digital Creators). Why do people trust an individual more? Perceived authenticity (they speak for themselves, not for a company), niche expertise (one sport, one topic, in depth), and direct contact (they reply in the comments). In sports, that means fan podcasts, ultras forums, and former players’ blogs: closer to the fans, more authentic, but without fact-checking and with the risk of rumors. The flip side is filter bubbles (content based on your previous clicks), echo chambers (you see only the views you already hold), sensationalism (clickbait: the algorithm amplifies emotion), and a fragmented public debate. More in the Psychology chapter.

A podcast is an audio series, and more and more often a video series, that listeners play whenever they want. Technically, it’s an RSS feed with audio files: you upload an episode to a hosting service, the host generates the RSS, and apps read it. Nobody gives you permission or promotes you. It’s a medium without a gatekeeper, where the hardest part is getting your first hundred listeners.

The numbers for Czechia are higher than most people expect. According to Median’s survey for Czech Radio (April 2025, 2,524 internet users aged 15 to 70), 63% listen to podcasts at least once a month, which works out to roughly 4.8 million Czechs in the 15 to 84 population. Weekly listeners grew from 36% (2023) to 44%, and the share of those who listen for more than two hours a week rose from 33% to 56%. The most used platform for both listening and discovery is YouTube, with Spotify second; people listen on their phones, in their free time (58%) and while doing chores (50%). According to the České podcasty platform, there were 1,176 active Czech podcasts as of October 1, 2025 (an episode in the last 90 days), and 57,445 episodes came out in the third quarter.

What sets podcasts apart: intimacy (a voice in your headphones, often during activities when you can’t read), long format (40 to 90 minutes, a relationship with the host), host-read ads, which work thanks to that trust, and weak measurement: you know the number of plays, not who listened or for how long. A podcast is good for depth and relationships, bad for quick reach. An interview with an employee lasts for months, a press release for a day. How to start:

Journalists think in genres, and it pays to know them. A news story answers who, what, when, where, why, and how, with the most important thing first. A reportage is news from the scene, with atmosphere. An interview is built on personality, commentary on opinion, analysis on data and context, a documentary on time and story. Then there are the digital formats: live streams, short video (Reels, Shorts, TikTok), podcasts, newsletters, photo galleries, data visualization. When you send material to a journalist, give it to them in the genre they work in: a result and a quote for a sports website, a story for a magazine, a table for a data journalist.

The second axis is the channel. The same content takes a different shape depending on where people see it: horizontal 16:9 on YouTube and TV, vertical 9:16 in Reels and Shorts, square or 4:5 in the feed, text with one image in an email, bare text in a press release. Generations also differ in where they are: according to AMI Digital Index 2025, Gen Z uses YouTube at 98%, Instagram at 96%, and TikTok at 77%, while millennials use Facebook and YouTube equally at 94% and Instagram at 75%. One format for everyone doesn’t work; one piece of content in five formats does. The technical specs are covered in the Production chapter.

The third axis is time: content has a life cycle. It gets created, distributed (web, social media, email, journalists), repurposed (three clips from an hour-long interview, a quote from a clip, a post from the quote), and archived so that it can be found. A short video lives for hours, an article for years. Hence the rule: one event, ten outputs. From one tournament: the result, a photo gallery with photographer credits, the athlete’s reaction on video, a quote for the press release, a clip for Reels, a story from the arena, an article for the website, a paragraph for the newsletter, a post for partners, an entry in the archive. None of it costs an extra day of shooting, just a plan made in advance.

The PESO model was described by Gini Dietrich in her book Spin Sucks (2014), and it’s the simplest map of communication today. Paid media: you control the message and the timing, you pay for every contact, and trust is the lowest. Earned media: a mention you can’t buy, but earn with a good story; the highest trust, zero control over what comes out. Shared media: social networks and communities where people spread the content; the reach is borrowed from the platform, and the algorithm can cut it at any time. Owned media: website, newsletter, podcast, contact database; the only thing nobody can switch off for you.

The original order of the letters tempts you to start with advertising. In practice, the model flips to OSEP: first Owned, because without a place of your own you have nowhere to send people; then Shared, where we spread our own content; then Earned, where journalists build on it; and Paid only at the end, to amplify what already works. Brands that do it the other way around pay for reach to something that has nowhere to lead. Each channel has a different role: Owned is home, Shared is conversation, Earned is proof, Paid is the amplifier. The best results come from the overlaps: a creator (Shared) talks about your podcast (Owned), a website picks it up (Earned), and you boost that article with ads (Paid).

A practical test for every channel: what happens if it gets shut down tomorrow? If Instagram disappeared, how many people would find you? If Google changed its algorithm, how many visits would you lose? If a journalist left, who would write about you? The only answer that doesn’t hurt is an email list and a website on your own domain. That’s why the Internet chapter starts with the website as the only place you own; borrowed reach is covered in the Social Media chapter, paid reach in the Advertising chapter.

Public relations is managing communication between an organization and its publics: journalists, employees, partners, fans, authorities. PR people write press releases and speeches, arrange interviews, speak for the company, guard its reputation, and handle crises. Unlike advertising, PR is mainly about earned media: space you can’t buy. A good PR person therefore thinks like an editor: what’s news for that outlet’s readers, not for the boss.

Journalists are overloaded, and they say exactly what they want. According to the Cision State of the Media 2025 survey (over 3,000 journalists from 19 countries), 72% call the press release the most useful thing PR can give them, 86% immediately reject a pitch that isn’t relevant to their beat or audience, and 85% say a relationship is best started simply: with an introduction by email. Over half of journalists already use generative AI, and 72% worry about factual errors in AI-written PR copy. The takeaway: write briefly and precisely, to a specific person, and back up every number.

A press release has a fixed anatomy, because a journalist reads it for ten seconds. The headline is the news in one sentence, with the name and the result, no embellishment. The first paragraph answers who, what, when, where, and with what result; if it were the only thing left, it would still have to work. A quote from the athlete or the boss adds emotion and what the journalist can’t write themselves. Facts and context: numbers, history, what it means. Photos in print quality, as a link, not a 30 MB attachment. A contact for a person who picks up the phone. And timing: a story about a medal is worth something for an hour; the next day, it’s already been written up from the agency feed.

The Czech Judo Federation is a small federation with a big name: Lukáš Krpálek has two Olympic golds (Rio 2016 under 100 kg, Tokyo 2020 over 100 kg) and world titles from 2014 and 2019. For the media, judo is Krpálek, and when he isn’t fighting, attention drops. So the federation’s media work has to get the most out of every result while newsrooms still want it. Journalists who care about results sign up for the mailing list themselves through the form on the For Media page.

At the core is the PR package for journalists after a Czech judoka’s result. The process: 1) match results from the public interface (API) of the International Judo Federation (IJF), with no manual copying; 2) the article from czechjudo.org; 3) a transcript of the athlete’s reaction, made locally on your own computer (ffmpeg and Whisper), and verbatim quotes from it; 4) photos from the IJF gallery with the photographer and a link to the original, plus a portrait from the agency Tvůj Brand; 5) an email, as a BCC, to the media list from the “Média kontakty” spreadsheet; 6) an entry in the send log. Goal: within half an hour of a medal, newsrooms get one email with everything. A person sends it, not a script: they check the email before sending and send it themselves.

The package has three rules: verbatim quotes, nothing made up, a credit on every photo. The IJF writes names without diacritics, so the Czech names are kept in a table keyed by IJF ID. Around the package runs the judo dashboard: upcoming events, Czech judokas’ matches at IJF events as phone notifications (draw, morning, medal, summary), and after a medal or a tournament day, the push “Prepare a PR package for the media?” The czechjudo.org website is the package’s permanent link: it has articles, results, a calendar, a media section, and links to social networks.

A crisis in the media comes unannounced, and in sports it typically involves doping, injuries, disputes in the team, finances, or fan behavior. There are three rules. A rapid response: answer a rumor or a controversy quickly and accurately; the media will read silence as an admission, and someone else will fill the space. One message: PR, players, coaches, and management say the same thing, and one person speaks for everyone. Multiple channels: a press release, your own website, social media, answers to journalists, and internally, employees and members hear it before they read it in the papers. Have a template for the first statement ready in advance (“we’re aware of it, we’re verifying, we’ll get back to you within two hours”) and a lawyer’s contact: in a crisis you don’t improvise, you fill in the template.

The second skill is reading media critically: knowing who owns the outlet (see the section on owners), checking the origin of a photo with a reverse image search, not trusting a sensational headline that promises more than the text delivers, and recognizing satire or deliberate disinformation (checklist below). The difference between native advertising (paid content in the newsroom’s style), influencer marketing (an athlete subtly recommends a product), and propaganda (deliberately shaping an ideology) lies in who pays and whether the reader knows.

Where is this heading? AI and algorithms: automatically written news, deepfakes (faked video or voice), summaries instead of clicks; and, on the other hand, AI for fact-checking. Decentralization: protocols instead of platforms, a common language of systems: HTTP and DNS for the web, SMTP and IMAP for email, RSS for content (podcasts still run on it today), ActivityPub for networks like Mastodon. A protocol belongs to no one; a platform belongs to someone. That’s why newsletters and podcasts will outlive the end of any network (the Internet chapter). And freedom or chaos: anyone can publish, disinformation included; nobody will draw the line between regulation and free speech for you, and as communicators you answer for it with every post. What comes next is summed up in the Trends chapter.