CTK Newsletter No. 4/2004

08.07.2004

Content:
Photobank as an assistant of our clients
Neris subsidiary prepares for the Olympic Games
CTK services – the Sports and Football databases
E-mails in HTML format
Theatre in the CTK underground spaces

PHOTOBANK as an indispensable assistant of our clients
THE PHOTOBANK IS A SHOP-WINDOW OF THE CTK PHOTO DESK BECAUSE IT CONTAINS NOT ONLY WHOLE CURRENT PRODUCTION, BUT ALSO HISTORICALLY VALUABLE PHOTO DOCUMENTS.
Whereas CTK was founded on October 18, 1918, its then „photo department“ started to develop in the mid-1920s only. Nevertheless the photo desk started to document right from the beginning all significant events in Czechoslovakia as well as abroad. The desk´s activities have not been interrupted throughout its existence to date and so the unique collection of photographs has been in a way continually and more or less systematically completed. It was a blessing in disguise that the extensive photo archive did not burn down at the end of World War Two when the CTK building was bombarded and largely damaged in the following fire. The reason was that it was relocated to Vinohrady during the war.

It is necessary to stress that the electronic photobank, which currently has about 600,000 photographs, is despite of its extent only a narrow segment of the photo archive which contains more than five million photographs on classical film materials - glass plates, negatives and slides.
We repeatedly remind our clients that they do not have to give up if they do not find the searched for photograph in the databank, but they should phone or send an e-mail to the photo documentary department and the photograph can be found in the classical card file which is functionary and frequented to date. Such found photograph is then immediately included in the photobank.
The photobank is besides the daily topical photo service the most monitored product of the photo desk. For better orientationit is divided into several sections:

• PHOTO NEWS
• PHOTO ARCHIVE
• KALEIDOSCOPE
• FASHION
• ILLUSTRATIVE PHOTOS
• ENGLISH OFFER

Kaleidoscope is mainly designed for society magazines, English Offer is in English and serves foreign clients, first of all. Illustrative Photo is the latest section and not too extensive for the time being, nevertheless daily completed and it should become a useful assistant namely for graphics journalists when creating collages and graphs.
The photobank is not only enriched day by day with the production of our photo reporters who work all over the country, but also with the most interesting photographs by foreign agencies with which our photo desk traditionally cooperates. The external collaborators from several foreign agencies of whom there are more than one hundred at present and whom CTK represents by means of the photobank in the sale of their photographs, are another significant source of photobank additions. Next to such ringing names as František Drtikol, Jaroslav Kučera, Pavel Vácha, Liba Taylorová, whole archives of such photographers as Jan Halaška or Karel Kestner have been placed in our care. The ingenious photobank software very accurately registers any manipulation with any photograph, which allows for an entirely correct settlement with the represented authors.

Our ambition is to more and more intensively transfer classical photographs from the archive into the infobank digital environment, as well as to extend the sources of photographs so that the offer be as wide as possible and thematically varied. Besides representing authors and buying photographs we try to gain material from inheritances and our documentarists visit secondhand bookshops in order to gain photographs which may be missing for the photobank to be complete.

Despite all care which we devote to the organisation and operation of CTK Photobank, we are aware of the fact that there is always something to improve and therefore we are pleased to get any of your comments or suggestions which would help clients to be maximally satisfied.

Neris subsidiary prepares for the Olympic Games
THIS YEAR´S OLYMPIC GAMES IN ATHENS WILL BE ANOTHER OCCASION FOR NERIS, A CTK SUBSIDIARY, TO CREATE SPECIAL DATA AND NEWS PRODUCTS FOR CZECH MOBILE OPERATORS.

The Neris offer will traditionally include a broad range of the short message service (SMS). It will provide a continuous SMS news service from the most important Olympic events as well as information from all most significant sports with an emphasis on those where the Czech Republic has ambitions to win medals.
The extended multimedia service (MMS) will include a textual and photo service on the important events on all Olympic sports grounds as well as on events which accompany the Olympics behind the scene, in the political sphere and in the security area. WAP services for mobile telephones will besides the broad Olympic news service also include charts of medallists and nations standings, running charts of collective sports and other data files.
Neris is a provider of the news service for all three Czech mobile operators. Besides the Olympic news service from Athens, Neris prepared for them this year, which is rich in sport, a special collection of services from the World Ice-hockey Championship in Prague and Ostrava and from the Football European Championship in Portugal.

We present CTK services - the Sports and Football databases this time
BESIDES THE SPORTS NEWS SERVICE CTK OFFERS TO THOSE INTERESTED IN INFORMATION ABOUT SPORTS MORE DETAILED DATA AND STATISTICS WHICH ARE STORED IN THE SPORTS AND FOOTBALL DATABASES.

• FOOTBALL DATABASE
A useful tool for everybody who needs detailed data on Czech and foreign football. In comparison with publicly accessible sources clients find there much more detailed and complete information and what is important, they can search in it according to criteria which are the most convenient for them. It is aimed at European football and it contains basic data on all national teams and on more than 10,000 players who have appeared on a national team of one of the 52 UEFA member countries since 1994. The database also covers the 25 most important football countries outside Europe - all which have since 1994 participated in a football championship. The part called Football - league brings detailed information on the Czech footballleague since its origin in 1993, basic data on all league players, surveys of mutual matches and many other statistical data which can probably be used in everyday editorial work .

• SPORTS DATABASE
A continuously updated database containing almost 2,500 documents with data on sports events in the Czech Republic and the world. You will find there surveys of the champions of the world, Europe and the Czech Republic in individual sports, results of further top international competitions, development charts of world and Czech records as well as statistical surveys. You can choose from more than 75 monitored sports including young, dynamic and marginal ones.

Do not send us e-mails in HTML format
AS ALL COMPANIES WHEN COMMUNICATING WITH THEIR PARTNERS USE ELECTRONIC MAIL, WE TOO ENDEAVOUR TO ENSURE ITS MAXIMUM SAFETY, RELIABILITY AND EFFECTIVENESS.
CTK applies a multi-level security system of e-mail communication. This system includes the interception and preventative removing of potentially dangerous news items and their parts. These include besides attachments in the form of executable files also variants of messages in html format, which can contain automatically initialised scripts. Therefore if you send us e-mails and use the html format, make sure, please, that your system also sends the purely textual variant of the message. In the opposite case the addressee may not be able to access your message at all. Moreover, we are not unfortunately able to inform the sender of this with regard to the frequent abuse of html mails by spammers.

Theatre in the CTK underground spaces
IN THE RECONSTRUCTED UNDERGROUND SPACES OF THE CTK BUILDING IN PRAGUE IN OPLETALOVA STREET THE THEATRE OF RADEK BRZOBOHATÝ OPENED IN APRIL. FORMERLY THE THEATRE OF MUSIC HAD ITS SEAT THERE.
Radek Brzobohatý inaugurated his theatre in April by a successful performance of Donald Churchill „Moment of Weakness“ which he performed in this space together with Hana Maciuchova in the sixties already. He has not returned alone but with all his family. The actress and wife of Radek Brzobohatý, Hana Gregorová, the producer. The company manager, daughter Rolla runs the adjoining restaurant and son Ondřej composes music for the drama staged.