Czech Radio 7 - Radio Prague to Continue its Shortwave Broadcast in 2010

The budget reduction will affect expenditures across the board, including money spent on shortwave transmitters. The station will be forced to end its DRM digital broadcasts and it will only be able to keep one of its two shortwave transmitters in Litomyšl. This will mean a slight reduction of the territory covered by Radio Prague's signal but it will not, by any means, be a dramatic change, according to the station's director Miroslav Krupička. "The vast majority of our shortwave listeners should not be affected. We are now working on a new broadcast schedule which should come into force on February 1st. The planned reduction will increase the importance of other platforms such as the Internet (podcasting) and rebroadcasts by partner organizations, which we will be developing and advertising much more in the future," Mr. Krupička said.

Radio Prague is an integral part of the country's public broadcaster Czech Radio and was established in 1936 at the instigation of the foreign ministry which finances the service. It has seen more than 70 years of uninterrupted broadcasting. Currently Radio Prague broadcasts in six languages, English, French, German, Spanish, Russian and Czech. Its English and French language service can also be heard on FM in Prague on Regina and RFI. In the past year Radio Prague has received feedback from 20 440 listeners around the world.

For more information on Radio Prague go to www.radio.cz.