Author: Vojtěch Berger, HlidaciPes.org, Czech republic
September’s regional elections in the Czech Republic once again brought to mind the crisis of regional and local media in the country. Fresh data this year confirmed that regional leaders often misuse their regional newspapers and magazines for their own promotion. The situation is no better for regional commercial television stations, where regional governments commission “reports” as part of their information service for the public. However, these often resemble more the PR of regional coalitions, and the average viewer has no chance to distinguish paid content from news.
Regional leaders often misuse their regional newspapers and magazines for their own promotion, the findings of the Transparent Czechia project and data collected by the Oživení (Revival) association show.
However, a similar situation exists with regional commercial television stations, most of which are commissioned to produce “news” reports or programmes for the regional governments.
Oživení analysed the content of several programmes on several regional television stations in different regions of the Czech Republic. As a rule, these were five consecutive episodes of the same programme in the period between June and July of this year – at a time when the hot campaign for the September regional elections had not yet begun.
Although this paid media space is formally intended to inform residents about what is happening in the region, including critical or opposition voices, the results of the analysis show something quite different: “The opposition did not get a single second of time on television, except for one report by the Ústí region,” says Oživení.
Priceless news
Let’s take a closer look at some of the examples. The Plzeň region in the west of the country has two contracts for this year regarding the production of reports and the purchase of media space, with ZAK TV and Mediapoint Consulting, which are to distribute the reports on the ZAK TV and Plzeň TV channels. The very first July episode of one of the contracted programmes “Our Region” had the following scenario:
The five-and-a-half-minute footage included two reports – on the announcement of the TOP 2023 regional monuments awards and on the opening of the new depository building of the Plzeň region’s Study and Research Library.
The obligatory ribbon-cutting at the new building by the regional governor is not missing on screen and two identical respondents speak for the region in both reports – the then governor Rudolf Špoták and the then councillor Libor Picka.
A month later, the governor was again the main star of another edition of the same programme. First during the presentation of the new trains at Plzeň’s main station and immediately afterwards in the following report about cycling for the disabled. In the report on trains, he was joined by his then deputy Pavel Čížek as a respondent.
At the beginning of September, the programme was devoted to a single topic – the harvest festivity of the Plzeň region. Špoták, the governor, was again unnoticeable, as he was given the opportunity to comment on camera and was seen in the background serving beer to the people at a folk feast.
These reports are accompanied by a jingle with footage from the Plzeň region landscape and its logo, but nowhere is it mentioned that the region also pays for their production. It is easy for ordinary viewers to get the impression that they are watching a regular news report.
Control over the content is also indicated by the contract between the region and the television station. According to the contract, the broadcaster ‘shall send the produced programmes to the client for approval by electronic means no later than 10 a.m. the day before the scheduled broadcast’.
Another example is the Zlín region, which has a contract with regional TVS station, respectively with J.D.Production company as its operator.
In addition to the production of more than four hundred reports per year, the contract also includes the production of discussion programmes with representatives of the region. One of the guests in August was the then Zlín Governor Radim Holiš, but only observant viewers could read in the closing credits that the interview was produced by TVS “in cooperation with the Zlín Region”.
“According to the client’s instructions”
The Liberec region in the north of the country commissions the production and broadcasting of the “Regional Magazine” programme from RTM Plus television station. It is produced once a week and has a similar format to its aforementioned counterpart in the Pilsen region.
Six minutes, one or two topics per issue, with regional councillors or the former regional governor Martin Půta as regular interviewees. However, unlike the Pilsen version of the regional magazine, the Liberec one includes a mention in the credits at the end of each episode that the programme “is produced with the support of the Liberec Region”. This is probably because RTM Plus TV has already had problems once before because of the production of the same programme.
Last year, the Radio and Television Broadcasting Council fined it CZK 50 000 for possible threats to the editorial independence of the broadcaster. The problem was this passage in the original contract with the Liberec region, which indicated the risk of the programme being used for the political campaign of the region’s leadership: ‘The contractor is obliged to produce the content of the Programme and Spots according to the requirements and instructions of the client.’
The Ústí nad Labem region relies on the regional television station ÚTV for its presentation. It produces a four-minute magazine “How life is in the Ústí nad Labem region”. Looking at the episodes broadcast from June to September this year, it is clear that mostly the regional coalition and the then governor Jan Schiller are given space here too, although the last episode in June also featured one opposition voice. The headlines do not identify the magazine as a commissioned programme paid for by the region.
The Governor, wherever you look
The South Bohemian Region commissions a similar service from JTV station. The format is the same here – presentation of the results of the region’s leadership. For example, in the 13th September edition of the programme – just a week before the regional elections – the then South Bohemian Governor Martin Kuba managed to inaugurate a repaired road and a senior citizens’ home.
A week earlier, he was caught on the camera as he handed over new trains, opened a new pavilion of the regional central hospital and welcomed the first-graders to school. Apart from the logo of the region in the closing credits, it is again not obvious from the videos that this is a paid collaboration and not a regular newscast.
News deserts
A similar practice is closely related to the phenomenon of so-called regional “news deserts”. The number of independent regional media outlets has been steadily declining, partly due to a reduction in advertising, exacerbated by the covid pandemic, which in turn increases the business pressure on media in small towns or regions. However, this is not a specifically Czech, but rather a pan-European phenomenon.
Efforts to retain at least some of their advertisers may lead to editorial offices resigning to publish some critical texts that could pit local businessmen against them. The financial weakness of these media also means that they are weak in resisting attacks from politicians at the local or regional level.
The space of independent local and regional media is then filled by commercial media projects. However, these are often dependent on advertising and contracts from local or regional governments, which practically excludes critical regional journalism on political issues.
As we described above, there is also the problem of the conflation of paid and editorial content, which is often insufficiently labelled by regional TV stations.
This was demonstrated by another excess of the aforementioned ÚTV in Ústí region. In the broadcast before the September regional elections, the TV station promoted Jindřich Rajchl’s PRO party. One of the PRO candidates invited the other party candidates to the studio as a moderator for a talk and the whole programme pretended to be a normal media interview. Moreover, the day before the elections, Jindřich Rajchl was also given free space in one report in the ÚTV news. The TV station and the party itself insisted, this was not a paid collaboration, but editorial content.
In this context, it is also worth mentioning that some of the aforementioned TV stations, which the regions order media space from, are associated in the Regio TV1 network and have an ownership structure linked through the companies of the Pilsen-based businessman Radek Novák. He uses the network for joint advertising sales and production of joint content.
This is why, despite this seemingly varied media landscape, “news deserts” proliferate in the Czech regions.
