Final Word from Tuesday, January 25, 2011
There's no doubt that low advertising revenue and higher feesfrom the near-monopoly signal-broadcaster České Radiokomunikacecontributed to the regrettable closing last night of Z1financial-news TV station. But this is only half the story. Remember,when J&T launched Z1, co-owner Patrik Tkáč let slipthat one value of the station would be in its ability to makerivals think twice before attacking the parent company. This"below the line" benefit had already proven itself in the caseof J&T's Slovak station, Tkáč said in late-2008. But a niche TVstation like Z1, with less than 1% of the market, has little abilityto dictate the public debate. Too few people were watching.Furthermore, the charity model of publishing/broadcastingcan only survive in its Czech incarnation as long as the patron'sother activities are worth supporting. In the case of J&T,some market players expect the Czech operations to be graduallysubsumed by PPF ... even if Daniel Křetínský of EPH vehementlydenied anything of the sort in LN last week.
Glossary of difficult words
regrettable - unwelcome; undesirable; (we liked Z1);
to let something slip - to reveal something inadvertently in the course of a conversation (although Tkáč might have fully intended to make his comment);
niche product/market - a special, limited area of demand for a product or service;
incarnation - form, manifestation;
to subsume - to include or absorb something into something else;
vehemently - forcefully, intensely.