Category: World Service
Date: 14.03.2006
Printable version
BBC World Service has signed an agreement to enable Czech digital radio network Radio Cesko to rebroadcast Czech language news and current affairs programmes alongside BBC English language programmes on FM across the Czech Republic, it was announced today.
The agreement is between BBC Radiocom (Prague) s.r.o. (a wholly owned subsidiary of BBC) and Czech Radio.
Radio Cesko is a public service Czech language news and current affairs station produced by Czech Radio.
The agreement means the BBC will continue, as now, to broadcast in the English language on FM for 18 hours a day in the Czech Republic capital Prague (on 101.1FM) and 11 other major cities.
Radio Cesko will broadcast on the BBC network for six hours a day from 15 March at 08.00 hours (local time).
The BBC's English language service will be available every day between 11.00 and 13.00 hours and from 16.00 until 08.00 next morning.
Radio Cesko - which currently broadcasts on the internet and DVB-T (digital terrestrial television system) - will broadcast in the Czech language between 08.00 and 11.00 hours and between 13.00 and 16.00 hours local time.
The programmes are also available in the following cities and frequencies across the Czech Republic: Brno 101.3 ; Ceské Budejovice 89.8; Hradec Králové/Pardubice 99.1; Jihlava 96.7; Karlovy Vary 94.7; Liberec 99.2; Olomouc 105.6; Ostrava 106.3; Plzen 98.6; Ústí n/Labem 105.8; and Zlín 93.9.
The BBC has been using FM frequencies in the Czech Republic to broadcast BBC English and Czech language programmes since 1992.
The change follows the end of broadcasts, after 66 years, by the BBC's Czech language service on 28 February this year.
Notes to Editors
BBC World Service has a global audience of 149 million per week and broadcasts in more than 30 languages.
Monthly page impressions to the BBC's international news site, which include audio and visual content and offer users opportunities to discuss world events, is 460 million. This equates to around 32 million monthly unique users.
The BBC World Service has more than 2,000 partner radio stations around the world which take BBC content, and numerous partnerships supplying content to mobile phones.
BBC World Service is funded through Grant-in-Aid from the UK Government Foreign Office. The grant for 2005/6 is £239m. BBC World Service is an international radio and online broadcaster delivering programmes and services in more than 30 languages.
JM2
