Brief History of CTK
The foundation of CTK (1918)
CTK was founded on October 28, 1918, the same day as Czechoslovakia and was called the Czechoslovak News Agency. Until the 1990s it was a state agency and its history is closely linked with that of the Czechoslovak state.
The period of building and development of the agency (1920-30)
In the years 1920 – 1930, CTK was headed by Emil Čermák who is considered the founding father of the agency. He managed to build – for that time – a modern news agency, which had a wide network of local and foreign correspondents.
CTK signed contracts with renowned world news agencies – Reuters, Havas and Wolff. At the same time, CTK was one of the co-founders of Agences Alliées, an organization uniting European news agencies.
Following an agreement signed with Radiojournal in 1925, the agency’s news service for radio was broadcast from the radio studio in the CTK building.
In the early 1920s, the agency created its first photo department with Artuš Černík as its head. A photographic archive was created during this period. It experienced a more significant development in the 1930s and it has been continuously completed since then. Nowadays, the archive contains over 5 million photographs.
In September 1930, CTK moved to a newly constructed functionalist style building in Opletalova Street in Prague. In March 1939, Czechoslovakia was occupied by Nazi Germany´s troops. Information about this was read by Czech actor Zdeněk Štěpánek via the CTK radio service. In consequence of the creation of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, the Slovak part definitely separated from CTK.
CTK during the war (1939-45)
CTK headquarters were occupied by the Nazis after the creation of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. In August 1939, the head of the government presidium press department, Zdeněk Schmoranz, together with CTK editor-in-chief Arnošt Bareš were arrested for illegal resistance activities organized via CTK.
Zdeněk Schmoranz and other journalists were executed in 1942. The domestic news service was entirely subordinated to the press section of the Reichsprotektor, headed by Wolfgang Wolfram von Wolmar.
A massive fire broke out at the CTK headquarters during the liberation of Czechoslovakia in 1945 and its irreplaceable text archives were completely destroyed.
CTK under the totalitarian regime (1948-89)
In 1948, CTK was subjugated to the communist dictatorship. The agency became a tool of political propaganda of the party in power for a long time to come. The news service was heavily censored for almost the whole period of the totalitarian regime. Two types of news were produced – one for the public, the other was designated for high-placed state officials. The agency was formally subordinate to the government, but it was actually directed by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia.
In the latter half of the 1950s, CTK started exporting news to the Far East, Latin America and later also to Africa. In the 1960s, CTK was also expanding its international activities. The agency had a wide network of foreign correspondents and freelancers. The news service was produced in English, French, Spanish and Russian. During the same period, CTK launched the publishing house Pressfoto, started publishing the 100+1 magazine containing interesting information from abroad and running the advertising agency Made in…(Publicity).
In 1968, CTK, too, went through a revival process. On August 20, 1968, nightshift editor Jaroslav Lažanský refused to carry out the order by CTK Director Miroslav Sulek to move a “request” by unnamed members of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia Central Committee, calling for Soviet military help against the “counter-revolutionary forces”. This letter of invitation was published by the TASS agency in Moscow on the next day.
In the 1970s and 1980s, CTK was controlled by the normalization regime. Many employees were either forced to leave the agency or transferred to other, less important posts. Many of them chose emigration.
In the 1980s, CTK started to use computers. The agency created its first databank in 1988 and its whole news service has been archived electronically since then.
The period of independent news service after 1989
CTK was largely engaged in the Velvet Revolution of 1989. The transformation of the agency was started as the local market conditions changed. CTK was striving for an independent and unbiased news service.
In 1992, the Slovak part separated from the agency and a public corporation, the Czech News Agency, was created based on law No. 517/92.
The agency began to apply the market principles. Its privatization was considered. In 1993, CTK experienced a deep economic crisis, followed by the completion of its transformation and reorganization. Under the law on CTK, the agency was separated from the state and it became a public corporation. It has no particular owner, it is supervised by the CTK Council, whose seven members are elected by the Chamber of Deputies of Czech parliament.
Thanks to technical development, CTK started to digitally process its photo service and transmit photographs via satellite. CTK enlarged its documentary databases, started to produce more infographic items and it launched an English-language business news service. At the end of the 1990s, CTK Infobank was launched. It contains current news as well as archival and factual databases.
In the 1990s, the agency was systematically improving the quality of its information service. It broadly extended its regional news service and developed further activities. It was one of the first agencies to launch Internet newspapers (Czech Daily, Financial Daily, Sports Daily). In 1997, CTK bought a 50 percent stake in Newton Information Technology, which focuses on media monitoring and analyses. In 1999, CTK founded its 100 percent subsidiary Neris, specialized in Internet and multimedia news services. In the same year, CTK bought Czech Capital Information Agency (Čekia). CTK formed part of a group of companies, which was active in this shape for almost ten years.
The beginning of the new millennium saw the arrival of multimedia services. CTK sold Čekia and its stake in Newton IT and focused mainly on the agency news service and the new media. It created an audio news service and an entertainment and lifestyle news service and in 2003, it built a large open-space newsroom. In 2006, CTK launched a new multimedia editorial system and a video service.
In 2007, a new unit, CTK Photobank, was created. It processes, stores and sells photographs also to clients coming from other areas than subscribers to the current news service. In the same year, CTK entered the new international organization of news agencies, MINDS International. It remained a member of the European Alliance of Press Agencies (EANA, originally Agences Alliées).
At the beginning of 2009, CTK´s organizational structures was changed to better reflect the developments in the outer environment. The reorganization was being prepared during 2008 already. It aimed at merging all parts of the agency (written, photo, video, audio, infographics services) into the new News Service unit. Shortly afterwards, CTK launched a new service of short and fast news, the Headline Service.
In 2009, CTK succeeded in selling a license for its Multimedia editorial system to the German agency dpa. In the same year a new web interface of CTK Photobank was put into operation. The application markedly improved the user operation comfort, opened on-line access to all photographs in the database and thanks to the advanced search technology, it extended the portfolio of photographs with addition of the complete production of represented foreign partners. In 2009, CTK Videobank was launched. It serves on-line search in the databases of the agency´s videos and their distribution.
In the same year, CTK launched its training center, CTK Academy, which stages regular courses for its own employees as well as for firms, the public administration and the public. In 2008, then daughter firm Neris prepared several information channels for the Twitter service and in 2009, CTK went on the Facebook.
In 2010, Neris was incorporated into CTK as CTK Online. At the end of the year, CTK launched an application for access to its news service via the application for iPhone mobile phones and iPad tablets. It offered and sold the technical and graphic solution of the application to some of its clients.
In 2011, CTK launched a complete mobile version of its Internet publications at m.ceskenoviny.cz, based on the merger of the WAP portal and the pages for PDA devices that Neris operated from 2000. In June 2011, CTK adapted its news application to suit smartphones and tablets with the Android operating system as well.
After the success of the flash application from the Hockey World Championship in 2011, CTK prepared for its clients and their sports fans a data service and widgets for the biggest sports events of the year, including the Olympic Games in London in 2012. In the same year, the service of paid PR and advertising texts, Protext, launched in the early 1990s, was extended with addition of the web variant, Protext Online, entailing lower costs. Infographics is now also available in the CTK Photobank. The reorganization of the news service unit was completed with the merger of the written and multimedia editorial offices under one management.
In 2013, CTK started to continuously offer multimedia transmissions (live blogging) from important and widely-watched events to its Internet clients. Selections of CTK news items have been available via News Select CTK optimized for mobile devices since the same year. A new self-service product, Newsmarket CTK, offers customized selections of headlines, distributed via SMS news or e-mails. The CTK news service is also available in Mercedes Benz and BMW dashboard information systems.
CTK is a politically and economically independent news agency. Since 1996, CTK has been receiving no subsidies from the state nor has it been drawing money from other public resources.
In May 2015, a new ČTK Infobank was launched, enabling searches on mobile phones and tablets and linking text messages with photos, sounds, infographics, and with each other. The agency also launched the ČTK Live service – online broadcasts – providing fast, concise and continuous coverage of selected important events.
In July 2017, the first eight students graduated from the ČTK Summer School, which was organised by the ČTK Academy in cooperation with the news desks. Students had the opportunity to take a look behind the scenes of the agency’s news production and learn about the daily work of reporters and editors at the national news agency. The ČTK Summer School became a regular event, and in later years, the agency moved it to Uherské Hradiště as part of the Summer Film School there, as described below.
The first half of 2018 brought two new features to the Protext PR service. PROTEXT SPECIAL - magazines dedicated to a single significant topic, published primarily in PDF format. The second novelty is a commercial video streaming, Protext Video.
In October 2018, ČTK celebrated 100 years since its establishment (ČTK commemorated 100th anniversary of its founding with reception at Žofín). To mark this anniversary and the anniversary of the birth of the republic, ČTK prepared a travelling photo exhibition called Moments of the Century. It also offered its first open house for the public (Nearly 800 people came to ČTK for open house).
With the exhibition Moments of the Century, the agency launched a series of annual thematic exhibitions with "moments" in the title, in which it gradually showed from its photo archive the Velvet Revolution (Moments of the Velvet Revolution exhibition), manipulation in photojournalism (Undesired Moments exhibition), the Olympic Games (Olympic Moments exhibition), the history and division of Czechoslovakia, which was the first exhibition to travel abroad – (Czech President Pavel viewed the ČTK exhibition in Bratislava) to Slovakia, of course) (Exhibition Czecho/Slovak Moments) and in 2023, photographs of Czech and Czechoslovak presidents (President Pavel saw ČTK photo exhibition at Prague Castle).
Since 2019, ČTK has been the main media partner of the Summer Film School (LFŠ) festival, where the agency also relocated the ČTK Summer School (Students from "little ČTK" learned about diversity of journalism profession at LFŠ). Since 2021, the ČTK Academy has been providing agency journalism training for the Faculty of Social Sciences of Charles University (FSV UK students interested in agency journalism learn directly at ČTK).
In addition, the Academy also offers special courses on news reporting for teachers and children (Media education with ČTK – workshops for students and courses for teachers), for which it has also been organising summer media camps called "Furious Reporter" since 2020 (Children turn into furious reporters at ČTK media camp), and at the same time, it participates in the Media Education Weeks (Fifteen ČTK journalists to take part in Media Education Weeks, ČTK to also welcome pupils on excursions).
Despite economic crises, changes in the political and media environment, and the increasingly costly production of professional news reporting, ČTK has maintained its editorial independence, which it considers its most valuable asset and which was strongly promoted not only by Director General Milan Stibral but also by News Desk Editor-in-Chief Petr Holubec (1991-2016), and later by directors Jiří Majstr (2011 to 2023) and Jaroslav Kábele (since 2023) (Kábele takes over ČTK helm, wants to defend independence of news reporting).
Since 1997, the agency has not received any state subsidies or drawn other public funds, which makes it politically and economically independent. For more than ten years, its economic stability has been confirmed annually by the highest AAA rating from the Bisnode agency (Bisnode once again confirms that ČTK is one of the most stable companies in Czech Republic).
Although ČTK works as a commercial company, it also performs many other functions that do not have a direct impact on its revenues. One of these is to serve as the chronicler of the republic. That is why it also focuses on the aforementioned exhibition projects, which it has accompanied with a book on selected topics (Czecho-Slovak Moments).
In 2021, ČTK acquired Profimedia, the largest photo bank in Central Europe (ČTK acquired Profimedia.CZ group). This was the largest acquisition in the agency's modern history, however, it was not the only one – it had previously acquired (and later sold), for example, the Čekia and Newton companies.
Through Profimedia, ČTK has entered new markets. The merger of the unique offer of the ČTK Photobank and Profimedia in September 2022 created a “super photobank” offering more than 300 million photos in one place.
In 2021, ČTK, like the rest of society, struggled with COVID-19, but gradually returned to its normal operation. It captured its colourful 103rd year of existence in its annual newsletter: ČTK - Newsletter 28/2021.
The following year was captured in the newsletter for 2022 (ČTK - Newsletter 31/2022).
In addition to producing news, ČTK is constantly expanding its range of tailor-made services for the commercial and public sectors.
In 2021, the Centre for Special Services (CeSS) was established, bringing together PR services under the Protext brand, the ČTK Academy, the ČTK PressCentre (completely renovated in 2023 to mark the agency's 105th anniversary (ČTK opens renovated PressCentrum, expands its custom services), and other commercial services of the agency.
This project was led by Director of Strategy and Development Jaroslav Kábele, who was elected Director General of the agency by the ČTK Council in March 2023 (ČTK Council elects Jaroslav Kábele as new director general of the agency).
The agency places great emphasis on the development and use of new technologies for the creation and distribution of news. In the year of its 100th anniversary, ČTK used automatic text generation for the first time during the regional and Senate elections, significantly speeding up its election results service with the help of pre-prepared templates linked to data from the Czech Statistical Office.
Since then, it has continued to automate other routine editorial activities and has collaborated on various projects related to artificial intelligence, such as a 2019 project examining the impact of these technologies on journalism (Scientists to study impact of artificial intelligence on journalism, including ČTK).
In 2021, ČTK launched a new version of its editorial system, entitled Agnes. The system allows users to work from any device, but is also open enough to enable the use of external sources, including ChatGPT.
The agency has embraced the advent of generative AI tools, created and updated internal editorial rules for working with them, and collaborates with other media outlets, technology platforms, and scientific institutions (ČTK prepares AI rules; elements of automation have been in news reporting for 30 years), and in 2018, it presented its results to date at a discussion with students at the Faculty of Social Sciences of Charles University (On robotic journalism at ČTK - recording of debate at Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University).
The agency sees the key to its future in the combination of editorial expertise, experience, and a new perspective on everything related to news reporting and other activities.