Czech TV excels

Czech Television has generally gotten very good grades for its extensive flood coverage. Some people have complained about its annoying habit of marking old footage as "live," but Lidové noviny has praised it for carrying out its duties in nearly exemplary fashion. The floods came at a time when plans to cut back news coverage at Czech TV were being finalized. The cuts provoked a protest from the never-shy news staff. Czech TV is heads above the commercial TV stations in terms of overall news coverage, but it's been moving increasingly toward commercialization. Vladimír Železný has contributed to this by showing rating charts on his weekly show on TV Nova. If he departs from Nova soon, as signaled by Euro magazine, this would likely end. Instead of fighting a ratings war, Czech TV could concentrate again on public service.