CONTENTS:
ČTK LAUNCHES VIDEO SERVICE
SLOVAK LANGUAGE SERVICE
AGENCY NEWS IN YOUR POCKET
NEW SPORTS SERVICE SOFTWARE – V-SPORTEN
NEW MULTIMEDIA SERVICE – 3D ANIMATIONS
ČTK SELLS ITS SHARE IN NEWTON INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
IMPROVING AUDIO NEWS SERVICE
SEMINARS ON WORKING WITH ČTK SERVICE
80-YEAR ANNIVERSARY OF ČTK PHOTOGRAPHIC DEPARTMENT
Newsletter in PDF format
ČTK launches video service
Team of ČTK video reporters.
The new service of the Czech
News Agency, the role of which is
to prepare news videos for ČTK
clients, celebrates the first three
months of „full“ operation. Besides
text, infographics and audio, ČTK
started the production of another
news format and thus completed the
complex multimedialization of its
news service.
ČTK has its own video staff, travelling
from its headquarters in Opletalova Street
to Prague and its surroundings to capture
not only political but also entertainment
stories. The monthly number of video
news features is about 120 with topics
spread evenly between politics and
lighter news material. Besides the news
features, ČTK also provides information
on upcoming movies. A collection of
international video news is also being
prepared. This collection will benefit
from the photographic services of
a major international news agency.
ČTK video service is mainly designed for
Internet clients, web news servers, which,
just this year, launched a presentation of
video production. Our clients are mainly „common“ TV channels and inclusion of
the agency video production in the offer
of mobile phone operators is expected.
The video news production unit will
certainly adapt the amount and video
content to client demands.
Video reporters in action. David Vozdecký and Kateřina Procházková (right).
The daily offer of video features will be
available in the ČTK database, which
clients can access using a standard
Internet browser.
Before ordering the video news feature,
ČTK clients can preview it and if
interested, they can „download“ it to
their PC. As part of the service, Internet
clients can benefit from automatic
delivery of video news to their servers.
Slovak language service
On March 4, ČTK launched its news service from
Slovakia in the Slovak language in order to respond to
the demands of its Slovak media clients.
The Slovak news service was founded by reporters mainly experienced
in reporting international and economic events. Currently there are
nine reporters in Bratislava, one in Žilina, one in Banská Bystrica and
one in Košice. The news service in Slovak is published in Bratislava
by four editors. Five photographers work for ČTK in Slovakia.
The Slovak news service mainly focuses on general, economic and
cultural news and on most important events in our neighbouring
country. It also covers occasional sports events. The average daily
news output is between 20 and 30 news pieces per day and sometimes
even double that amount. ČTK in Slovakia also provides its clients
with regular overviews of upcoming events.
Within the first six months of its launch, the Slovak editorial desk
delivered to its clients over 4000 news items, more than 2000
photographs, 150 audio recordings, 80 info-graphic diagrams and 70
profiles.
Despite the fact that there are already two local news agencies
established in Slovakia, the news service in Slovak has - in a short
time - become very popular. The news regularly appears in Slovak
newspapers and is taken up every day by TV and radio stations.
Clients mainly appreciate the professional data processing, search
for topics, the speed and the efforts to meet requirements in lead time
event planning. This was evident during the Parliamentary elections
in Slovakia last June. Back then, the ČTK news service in Slovak
attracted attention by its instantaneous reporting. ČTK‘s approach
and information processing became a guideline even for renowned
international news agencies.
The successful start on the Slovak information market is also
supported by the fact that immediately after its launch, the new
service was purchased by practically all important Slovak media, e.g.
the absolute majority of the most important ČTK clients in Slovakia.
Last summer, the ČTK editorial desk in Bratislava moved into larger
premises so that it may then gradually expand and meet further
requests of Slovak customers. Some Czech clients have already
shown interest in receiving the news service in Slovak.
Agency news in your pocket
This year is marked by several
local „mobile communication“
anniversaries. Fifteen years ago, the
first cellular radio telephone network,
as it was known and used in agency
news, was launched by the Eurotel
company.
The phone call between František Mikloško,
chairman of the Slovak National Council and
Dagmar Burešová, chairwoman of the Czech
National Council, on 12 September 1991,
represented the festive launch of the analogue
NMT network, which no longer runs today.
Five years later, the digital GSM network - its
younger sister - was launched. This network
also opened the gateway to agency news
service provision.
The first information from ČTK to end clients
was transferred on April 1, 1997, as part of the
InfoText service provided by EuroTel. A year
later, Paegas Info was launched on the rival
RadioMobil network. The client had to order
every news item by sending the relevant key
word to the customer centre.
The evolution of information services for
mobile devices has been closely linked to
technology development and also to growing
competition on the mobile network operator
market. As a result, the range of offered
services became broader and the prices for
end clients went down. The agency also
responded to the changing requirements of
its clients. At first, SMS messages were sent as headlines of the standard agency news,
directly from the editorial system. With
more diversity of contents, important
editorial adjustments and nonautomatic
content distribution
became necessary. Since 1999
this task has been transferred to
Neris (agency for Internet and
new media), a ČTK subsidiary.
Nowadays, all three local mobile
operators offer agency news
service. Currently, 30 topic SMS
channels are available. These
channels are created by Neris from
the ČTK news service. This service
allows customers to get instant and
operational access to basic general
information, based on their preferences.
The news topics include „top“ politics,
international and local news, financial and
macroeconomic information and the results
of sports events.
However, mobile news services are not made
up merely of SMS messages. Since December
1999, it has been possible to read the ČTK
news using WAP, which has gradually
changed from a purely text environment into
full multimedia mobile Internet.
The first multimedia messages (MMS)
were sent to clients in 2002. Thanks to
falling prices and more open possibilities
in comparison to SMS, MMS messages are
becoming increasingly popular with users. At
present, Neris has created 19 topic channels,
including special topics such as online
news reports from international football
matches.
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Modern mobile phones are no loger used
just for making calls such as the first Nokia MD59 (left). |
 |
A modern mobile phone no longer
weighs 4.5 kilograms, as did the first
Nokia MD59, and is no longer used just
for making calls. Today, your mobile allows
you to read e-mails, connect to high-speed
Internet, display high quality photographs,
play videos, monitor news from your favourite
webs using a so-called RSS channel reader,
etc. The potential of agency news is far from
being used up.
In recent years, Neris has acquired a great
portion of the Czech mobile information
service market. The company‘s SMS and
MMS news services, provided to users by
all Czech mobile phone operators, are the
biggest in the Czech Republic and among
the largest in Europe. Details about our
available services, including detailed ordering
instructions, can be found on the website of
your mobile communication provider.
New sports service software – V-Sporten
Since the beginning of the new season, the Czech News Agency
has become one of the news agencies using the special V-Sporten
program for processing results of sports events. This software,
developed by a Danish company, allows us to process sports
tables both faster and in a more comprehensive way, including
very complex tables such as NHL tables.
As the ČTK sports editorial desk regularly publishes tables of
about 50 long-term contests, the new program is expected to speed
up the table generation process considerably, which will certainly
be highly valued by our clients, who constantly face time and
publishing deadline problems.
New multimedia service – 3D animations
Info-graphics has been one of the basic
services provided by ČTK to its clients
since the 1990’s. Since June, visitors to
some Czech sports websites may have come
across the latest product of the info-graphics
agency service, 3D animations. Using
a special program, the agency’s graphics
create files with animated graphics, which
show both real and virtual scenes.
The 3D file player works in the
Macromedia Shockwave environment.
The service is designed to be used in the
web page environment, where the user
has the possibility to interact with the
picture, for instance, stop or accelerate the
movement or even set the exact angle of
view. After export to one of the supported
formats, animations may also be played in
the same way as any video file.
3D animations display real life situations as wellas virtual scenes.
User can stop or accelerate the movement, or even set the exact
angle of view.
3D graphics were first used to capture the
key moments of World Cup football matches
and now are being used to capture
key moments of Gambrinus football league
matches. Our offer will be enlarged
to animations from other than football or
sports environments. This new service has
some apparent advantages: it is not only
able to graphically illustrate motion or
a real situation for which no video is
available or would be impossible or too
dangerous to obtain, but it is also able
to prepare motion graphics of a virtual
scene, which are very difficult to
demonstrate in another
way, such as threedimensional
simulations
of the weather forecast
or simulations from the
micro-world environment.
ČTK sells its share in Newton Information Technology, s.r.o.
ČTK sold its 50% share in the Newton Information Technology
to Newton Holding last May. The main reason for its sale was
that the agency intends to focus on strengthening and improving
its core business, i.e. news production from all areas of life.
Newton Information Technology focuses on media monitoring
and analyses. The company operates in the Czech Republic and
Slovakia and also in Poland, where it has a daughter company.
The Newton IT company was founded in 1995. Since 1997,
ČTK has held a 50% share in the company.
Improving the audio service
For six years, we have been publishing 25–30 audio recordings
of statements from well known people. These recordings are
purchased by nearly 50 clients, including radio or TV stations and
Internet publishers.
By the end of this year all our reporters working with audio
recording will be given new digital recorders made by the
Spanish company AEQ, which is a renowned manufacturer of the
highest quality audio equipment. The main advantage of this new
equipment is the considerable improvement in audio recording
quality.
Due to the fact that the new dictaphones store the recordings
directly according to industry standard formats and have a bigger
internal memory, the processing of recordings will become easier
and faster, including their distribution to clients.
Seminars on working with ČTK service
Our clients are welcome to participate
in seminars on working with the ČTK
service. The seminars will be held
on 31. 10. 2006 and 28. 11. 2006
at 10:00 a.m., at ČTK headquarters
in Opletalova 5/7, Praha 1.
Besides traditional content user seminars, we will be happy to
respond to any questions related to changes in the ČTK service.
We can also arrange for the ČTK Infobank seminar to be held at
our client’s premises. The topic and date of the seminars will be
selected based upon your needs.
Please send your application forms to: docekalova@mail.ctk.cz.
80th anniversary of ČTK Photographic department
It is 80 years this year since ČTK first met the poet, reporter and
film critic Artuš Černík, who is considered to be one of the founders
of the ČTK photographic department. Artuš Černík started to work
in ČTK in 1926, after he had completed his „Pásmo“ project.
This project was published by the publisher Devětsil from Brno
and concerned mainly news from the international cultural scene.
Černík was both its editor and publisher. After leaving Devětsil,
he approached Evžen Markalous, a photographer, whose father
Bohumil Markalous (writer Jaromír John) had been working in the
press department of the Parliamentary presidium, the institution,
to which ČTK reported. Černík applied for a job in ČTK. In his
application he used, among others, these
words: «...I will be happy with a six-month
trial and 600 CZK per month». Černík got
the job and worked in ČTK from March to
September 1926.
Ilustration (photographic) department room in 1935.
Artuš Černík in front of the microphone.
Between 1929 and 1945 Černík returned
to ČTK and thanks to his organizational
capabilities and contacts in the local and
international cultural sector, he soon
became the head of the editorial desk
and had a serious impact on the quality
of its production. Artuš Černík, whose
significance, both artistic and journalistic,
has not so far been fully acknowledged,
laid significant foundations for further
work and development of the photographic
department.
Artuš Černík, theater and film critique.
One of the founders of ČTK photo department.
Currently there are about 25 photographers
employed at the photographic department
creating a news service consisting of
more than one hundred photographs per
day from all over the Czech Republic.
As far as the international part of the
service is concerned, it is created by using the AP Photo service, which comprises more than one thousand
photographs per day. ČTK provides daily satellite image services
to local daily newspapers, major TV stations, selected magazines
and Internet clients. Other media can access the agency production
using the electronic photobank. The photographic department is
also in close contact with foreign partners throughout the world.
The archive of photographic service contains more than 5 million
photographs, which are gradually being digitalized and made
available online to all users.
CTK Newsletter No. 9/2006