Seminář Financial Risk Management

CONTENTS:
DATABASE OF EVENTS – A CLEAR OVERVIEW OF UPCOMING EVENTS
VIDEO NEWS SERVICE EXPANDS
VIDEOBANK UNDERGOES A FACELIFT
CZECH SHOW BUSINESS IN THE ČTK PHOTOBANK
NEW IN THE PHOTOBANK – “PHOTO SCHEDULE”
ENGLISH OFFER – PHOTO SERVICE IN ENGLISH
A NEW FORMAT FOR NEWS
SEMINARS ON WORKING WITH THE ČTK SERVICE
SPECIAL SMS SERVICE FOR JOURNALISTS

Newsletter in PDF format

Database of events – a clear overview of upcoming events

The Prague editorial staff in Opletalova street.

The world is full of important events every day, but not all of them make it into the newspapers. If the media are to cover everything that the public is looking for, journalists need to know about scheduled events.
What does this mean for a press agency? This is a question that ČTK asks itself more frequently than readers may think.

Scheduled events are a hot agency topic and a valuable product. One third to a half of media content is based on events that were known ahead of time. The fact that this kind of information has been becoming ever more concentrated in ČTK, represents both an obligation and a challenge for the agency.

We have offered our clients information on upcoming events since the very beginning – the first such item was published 4 November 1918, a week after ČTK’s founding. Much has changed since that time, and today’s new technical possibilities and new media requirements call for further change. We have therefore re-organised this service using a database of upcoming events which offers clients the broadest possible range of options. ČTK can thus offer a new way of storing, searching for and finding this kind of information.

All sorts of people in ČTK look for and store information on upcoming events: foreign and domestic correspondents, Prague and regional reporters, and journalists tracking foreign press and agency news. ČTK receives hundreds of such announcements from state officials, companies, financial institutions and non-governmental organisations. Whenever we get our hands on such information, we always do the same – we thrown them all into one sack.

Now, we have opened this sack to our clients in such a manner that they do not all have to dive in at the same time.

This “sack” is a brand new database whose search features of course meet the needs of our clients – otherwise the service would lose all meaning. There are many clients and even more requests and needs. They include not only media, but also communications and media agencies, institutions’ press departments, betting agencies and cultural organisations. Some focus on politics, others on finance or sports, still others on entertainment. Our clients must have the possibility of searching for an event according to a given topic. Sometimes, they need to know a specific day, week, or even hour, and so they must have the option of searching according to a specific time frame. And because ČTK’s clients are located in all parts of the Czech Republic and Slovakia, it must also be possible to search by region. Clients can also search according to the importance placed on the event by the agency.

Nor have we forgotten those clients who will want to search “just for the sake of it”. It is hence also possible to do a fulltext search, i.e., to search among all the words contained in the database. Then there are clients who want a ready-made product – for these clients, we offer previously prepared, regularly updated selections. It’s all just a click away.

The resulting service aims above all to be an aid. The information database expands every day, with roughly 7,000 new items added every month. At ČTK we are confident that we are capable of offering our colleagues a powerful tool for finding the right item, for planning their reports, their communication campaign, and their media relations.

Please contact the CTK sales department for a free trial period at: obchodni@mail.ctk.cz.

News from ČTK’s video department

The new look of the ČTK Videobank gives visitors a quicker overview of content.

Video news service expands

At the beginning of 2007, ČTK’s video news service was expanded to include foreign news and events taken from the American Agency Associated Press agency (APTN). ČTK now has the possibility to select and compile features from more than fifty news items everyday.

ČTK offers its clients five to ten news reports a day, covering domestic and foreign events, features on lifestyle and movie premieres. The current main subscribers to ČTK’s video service are internet news servers such as Novinky.cz, Blesk.cz, Aktualne.cz and Ceskenoviny.cz. Several television stations subscribe to ČTK’s video reports as well, in particular Slovakia’s TA3 news station. ČTK has also prepared modified content for mobile operators.

Videobank undergoes a facelift

Access to the videobank is available to all ČTK clients who receive news reports through one of our business models. It is clear at first glance that the new format offers more information from a longer period of time. A brief animation of the report in the individual reports’ windows gives the visitor a quick overview of its content. Windows containing today’s news are in red. The column “Coming Events”, which is updated every day at 8:30 a.m. and 2 p.m., shows the latest information on events we expect to film. The simpler navigation facilitates the search for news reports – for instance, searching for past reports or reports on a specific person or issue.

News from the photographic department

Slovak supermodel Andrea Verešová waves after her marriage to Plzeň lawyer Daniel Volopich at the Kynžvart chateau.

Czech show business in the ČTK Photobank

Today’s readers are ever more likely to pay attention to what is going on behind the scenes instead of on stage, they are attracted to parties instead of formal ceremonies, and are ever more interested in celebrities’ private lives. For these reasons, we have prepared a new photo service from the turbulent life of Czech show business.

Lucie Vondráčková and actor Miroslav Vladyka at a party at Prague restaurant U pavouka.

The service offers 20 to 30 photographs a day, produced mainly by a special team of photojournalists assigned for the magazine service. The team has been recently reinforced by Veronika Šimková, an experienced photojournalist who previously worked for magazines such as Paparazzi, Šíp, AHA and Šťastný Jim.

Robert Rosenberg with his wife, porno actress Žaneta Vavrochová, at Prague club Amores Perros.

The photographs are most easily found in the Kaleidoscope section, our special up-to-date service on curiosities, trends, discoveries and inventions in the world around us. The service cannot be purchased individually, but is automatically accessible to all Kaleidoscope subscribers.

For more information, please contact the photographic department’s sales division: musilova@mail.ctk.cz.

New in the Photobank – “Photo Schedule”

In response to client demand, a new section called “Photo Schedule” was created in the photobank last March, offering an overview of the photo news service’s schedule of events. The schedule contains a description and the place and time of events.

New schedules are published every weekday at 8.30 a.m. and 2 p.m., at 9 a.m. on weekends and holidays. The Photo Schedule can also be searched in the ČTK Infobank’s text section. Just enter “photo schedule” as keywords.

English offer – photo service in English

Zbyněk Irgl, forward for the Czech national ice hockey team, arrives for the start of team practice 23 April at Prague’s T-Mobile Arena.

The ČTK Photobank offers a new English language photo service providing clients with English-captioned photographs from the most important news and events from the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

Events can be illustrated using not only photographs from our daily image service, but also archival images from our photographic archives. The captions are more detailed than in the Czech-language service, thus facilitating the search for additional information. There are currently around 4,500 images available in English, with the collection updated by roughly 15 new photographs per day.

The service can be purchased individually or as part of a subscription package of services in the form of individual items or a Fl at-rate subscription.

For more information, please contact the photographic department’s sales division: musilova@mail.ctk.cz.

A new format for the news

In connection with last year’s introduction of its new editorial system, ČTK has begun to offer news in the NewsML format. This new format gives subscribers the ability to work with a far richer set of metadata – information describing the report itself – than was possible before.

In addition to its simple XML-based coding and support for standard metadata fi les and their ČTK-defi ned distribution, the new format’s most signifi cant benefi t is its ability to link various published documents. Subscribers to the agency’s services can thus automatically replace news items in their systems with new or updated versions; they also receive information about which news items, photographs, sound bites or info-graphs are related to which events. All this information is provided using clearly defi ned and easily processed code.

All forms of transmitted services – i.e., practically all types of news, except for video – are available in the new format. For clients who receive our services via ČTK’s satellite distribution network, we have prepared new IRIS mail servers with new software and new DVB-S receivers.

Besides the advantages offered by the more powerful receiver hardware and the increased capacity for storing received news items, photographs and other objects, the new software also enables the reception of news in the NewsML format, its conversion into other formats directly in the receiver using XSLT templates and the transmission of news in the new formats to the subscribers’ systems. The templates for format conversion can be altered according to the subscriber’s individual needs.

In addition to the distribution of news in new formats, the updated IRIS also supports the reception and distribution of animated info-graphics. Over the course of the year, we are preparing to implement an entirely new version of mail servers which will expand the possibilities for working with the new format directly on servers and thus also offers benefi ts to subscribers who use IRIS servers as their main tool for working with the ČTK news service.

Requests for specifi c news samples in the NewsML format can be sent to uit@mail.ctk.cz.

Seminars on working with the ČTK service

Our clients are invited to attend seminars on the ČTK Infobank, held at the ČTK offices, Opletalova street 5-7, Prague 1.

The traditional users’ seminar on working effectively with the Infobank will be held on 20 June 2007 at 10 a.m. Seminars on new services offered by ČTK Schedules, ČTK Schedules – Options and Database of Events will take place on 21 June 2007 at 10 a.m. and 2 p.m.

We will gladly reply to clients’ questions regarding changes in ČTK’s news service not covered in the seminars. Participation is free of charge.

Seminars on working with the ČTK service

Please send your applications to: docekalova@mail.ctk.cz.

Special SMS service for journalists

On 1 May, ČTK launched a new SMS service for journalists through its subsidiary Neris. The purpose of this new service is to offer an operational tool for organising journalistic work and providing information on the latest news published in the Czech media.

The service includes a morning information bulletin on the main themes found in the daily press and an evening bulletin on the themes covered by the news programs of all major television stations. During the day, journalists are informed on important press conferences and other media events relevant to their work.

The agency offers regular CTK general news subscribers delivery of this service to two mobile phones free of charge.