Czech Television has elected the Chudárek-Fridrich duo into leadership. They want to steer the television into normal tracks.
After the Czech Television Council decided that Hynek Chudárek will be the new Director General, speculation is rife about the changes awaiting the public service institution. The new boss is expected to govern the television until mid-2031. Another media matador will have his back.
When the Czech Television Council met a week after the first three rounds of voting for a new Director-General, it was not envisaged that a new head could be elected.
In both the fourth and fifth round, both candidates, Milan Fridrich and Hynek Chudárek, received eight votes each. However, the surprise came when Fridrich decided to withdraw from the election. Thanks to this, Chudárek was elected with 13 out of 16 possible votes.
The wiser one stepped down
Nevertheless, it is clear that at least in the initial period, Friedrich's position will be more significant than what would be appropriate for an unsuccessful candidate. Both managers will be crucial for the future of television. The current head of the channel's program, Milan Friedrich, negotiated for a position as a statutory representative and CEO, who will be in charge of programing, content, and digital services.
"You can start running the television in tandem, which you declared here, from July 1st,"
He said towards both immediately after the result of the meeting, the Chairman of the Council of ČT Karel Novák. This was also confirmed by the winner of the selection procedure himself.
"In my project I said that I want to rely on strong managers, therefore I have narrowed down the management to a small number of people, and that I also want to work with people whom I know very well from Czech Television, so it can start immediately and immediately fulfill its role towards the public,"
He stated after the decision of the council Poor fellow.
Changes take time
What exactly will this mean? Both stated that they are not planning to dismiss the director of the news and public affairs division, Petr Mrzena, who protested during the election against the statements of some candidates about allegedly unbalanced news. However, they plan to separate news from public affairs and restore an independent economic editorial staff. New public affairs programs will be created from January at the earliest, possibly from mid-spring, because the autumn broadcast schedule is already planned.
According to some experts, further changes could occur. These should be noted by anyone who tunes into Czech Television.
"I'm curious if the visual appearance of Czech Television channels, the design of programs or changes in Události, proposed by Milan Fridrich, will move forward,"
commented on the situation for the Czech News Agency by media expert from DigiZone server Filip Rožánek.
The new CEO said that the launch of the CT3 program certainly won't be next year, but possibly later during the term. He is also against the merger with Czech Radio, as proposed for example by the head of the ANO movement Andrej Babiš. The poor man also prefers the current system of fees, which means more money against funding from the state budget.
Continue the work of Petr Dvořák
Both will try to connect to the time when Petr Dvořák was the head of the television and conversely cut off from how the public television worked for the last few years under Jan Souček.
"Gradually, it needs to get back on track, the way we were used to here with Milan during Petr Dvořák's management. And the television functioned very well back then. I'm not saying we will copy it, certainly not, but there is something to build on,"
Chudárek declared for the server Mediar.cz.
Hynek Chudárek is a former co-founder and head of the music station TV Óčko. Until now, he has been the commercial director at Czech Television. He has unsuccessfully run for the position of general director in the years 2009 and 2011. Milan Fridrich has been working at Czech Television for about 20 years. He has been managing its program for the last 14 years. He was already in the management of Jiří Janeček, Petr Dvořák and Jan Souček, who had to resign this spring.
According to the Association of Television Broadcasting, the average television viewing time in the Czech Republic for people aged 15 and over last year was 3.5 hours per day. One of the most sought-after programs is the matches of Czech hockey players at the World Championship. This year these attracted an average of 1.5 million viewers. Czech Television is also the medium that, along with Czech Radio, provides the most trustworthy news. Nearly 60 percent of us are convinced of this, as revealed by this year's Digital News Report. The news program Events on stations ČT1 and ČT24 is watched by an average of around 800 thousand people.
Sources: author's text, Ceskenoviny.cz, ČT, Mediar.cz, Mediaguru.cz, Digital News Report, ATO
