Czech News Agency (ČTK)

The Czech News Agency (Česká tisková kancelář, ČTK) is the national public-service news agency of Czechia. It was founded on 28 October 1918, the day the Czechoslovak Republic was established, originally as Československá tisková kancelář, and it remained a state agency until the 1990s. Following the separation of the Czech and Slovak agencies in 1992 it became a public-law institution.

Media assets

News agency: ČTK, providing text, photographic, video, audio, infographic and archival news services.

Digital: České noviny (ceskenoviny.cz), ČTK Infobank and the agency’s multimedia databases.

Photographic services: the ČTK Photobank and Profimedia, acquired on 1 July 2021, a wholly owned subsidiary.

Other commercial services: Protext press-release distribution, the ČTK Academy and PressCentrum, organised through ČTK Connect.

Ownership and governance

ČTK operates under Act No. 517/1992 Coll. on the Czech News Agency, enacted on 21 October 1992. It is an autonomous public-law institution rather than a state-owned company: under section 1 it is a legal person managing its own property, built on assets transferred from the former Czechoslovak agency, and the state is not liable for the agency’s obligations nor the agency for the state’s. It finances its operations principally through commercial services and is accountable to the public through a Council elected by the Chamber of Deputies.

The ČTK Council has seven members, elected and recalled by the Chamber of Deputies, which the Act names in its original form as the Czech National Council. Members serve five-year terms and may not serve more than two consecutive terms. Under section 5 membership is incompatible with a parliamentary seat, government office and senior state administration posts, with office in a political party or movement, and with board membership of media companies or a financial interest in media operation held by a member or a close relative. Unlike the Czech Television and Czech Radio Acts, the ČTK Act sets out no route by which civil-society organisations may nominate candidates, and the Senate has no part in the appointments, so nominations come from parliamentary parties.

Under section 8 the Council is to ensure the agency fulfils its mission, appoints and dismisses the Director General, approves the budget and the final accounts, approves the agency’s statute on the Director General’s proposal, decides complaints about the agency and its Director General, and supervises the use of any targeted state subsidy. It submits an annual report on the agency’s activities and finances to the Chamber of Deputies. Section 9 provides that the Director General is appointed for a six-year term and may be dismissed early only by secret ballot with at least five of the seven members in favour, the dismissal taking effect on the appointment of a successor.

The Council was below its statutory complement for more than a year. Angelika Bazalová’s mandate ended on 15 October 2024 and Aleš Mareček’s during 2025, and on 22 January 2025 the Chamber failed to fill the first of them, the sole candidate, René Levínský, receiving 63 votes against the 91 required. On 28 January 2026 the Chamber elected Jiří Ovčáček, the former spokesman of President Miloš Zeman, on the nomination of ANO, with 94 votes in a secret ballot; Romana Žatecká, nominated by the SPD, received 87 votes and René Levínský 67, and Jakub Heikenwälder withdrew after the first round. No deputy spoke in the debate before the vote. The Chamber returned to the election at its sitting of 6 March 2026, and Žatecká was elected in the second round with 87 votes against a threshold of 83, restoring the Council to seven members.

The Council now comprises David Soukup as chair, Jakub Končelík and Daniel Korte as deputy chairs, and Jaroslava Wenigerová, Jana Gáborová, Jiří Ovčáček and Romana Žatecká. Both appointments made in 2026 came on the nomination of parties in the governing coalition. Deputies proposed in January 2026 to raise Council remuneration by 87 per cent, from CZK 15,000 to CZK 28,000 a month for members and from CZK 22,000 to CZK 41,000 for the chair, rates unchanged since 2002. Reporting on the Council in February 2026 recorded that one member of the public submitted 19 complaints and proposals before that month’s session, against eight or nine received by the agency in the whole of the previous year.

The Council elected Jaroslav Kábele Director General on 21 March 2023 by five of the seven councillors, against two votes for Tomáš Pergler and none for Jan Mrzena. He took office on 11 June 2023, with a term running to 2029. He co-founded the iDnes portal in 1998 as its first editor-in-chief, left the Mafra group in 2017 to become ČTK’s strategy director, and succeeded Jiří Majstr.

Source of funding and budget

ČTK finances its operations principally through sales of news and other commercial services. Section 10 of the Act permits targeted subsidies from the Czech state budget but prohibits their use to cover financial losses. The agency receives no regular Czech state operating subsidy and no licence-fee income.

Reported total income rose from CZK 267 million in 2020 to CZK 291.1 million in 2021, CZK 305.8 million in 2022 and CZK 312.9 million in 2023. In 2024 revenues reached CZK 342.5 million against expenses of CZK 338.2 million, producing a net profit of CZK 4.318 million where the budget had assumed CZK 197,000.

Sales of products and services were CZK 340 million in 2025, up 3.5 per cent, while total reported revenue reached CZK 354.2 million, up 3.4 per cent, the difference comprising other income and project funding from the European Commission and the European Parliament. News services supplied CZK 227 million, two-thirds of sales and more than CZK 7 million above the previous year, while advertising services declined. Licence income from news rose 1.4 per cent, an eighth consecutive year of growth. The net profit was CZK 4.38 million, about CZK 61,000 more than in 2024 and above a budgeted CZK 183,000, while the operating result fell by CZK 573,000 to CZK 5.992 million.

ČTK records that contract terms with Czech Television and Czech Radio were renegotiated in 2025 and benefited from the higher broadcasting fees those two broadcasters then received. On 15 June 2026 the government approved a bill abolishing the television and radio fees and replacing them with state-budget allocations about CZK 1 billion and CZK 411 million below the two broadcasters’ 2026 fee plans; the bill was submitted on 19 June as parliamentary print 231 and had not received a first reading as of 8 October 2026. The proposal does not alter ČTK’s own funding, which the Act bases on commercial revenue, but both broadcasters are significant clients of the agency, so a reduction in their budgets carries an indirect commercial risk.

The Chamber’s media and culture committee unanimously recommended approval of the 2025 annual report on 17 September 2026, all ten members present voting in favour at a meeting held at ČTK’s PressCentrum. The rapporteur, Lucie Bartošová of the ODS, described the agency as an economically self-sufficient public-service medium, and the Council chair described 2025 as a year of stable operation.

Editorial independence

ČTK’s statute and Code guarantee its independence in producing and distributing news. The ČTK Code states that ČTK’s news service is independent and impartial, requires that every report be verified, places responsibility for the objectivity of each item on reporters and editors, obliges the agency to name its sources and permits anonymous sources only where information cannot be obtained openly and is essential, never as the basis for an opinion, accusation or speculation. It requires reporters to disclose actual or possible conflicts of interest to their supervisor and the editor-in-chief, and it excludes paid and commercial services, naming Protext and advertising placement, from ČTK journalism, with the requirement that users be able to distinguish them. No evidence of sustained government direction of the agency’s editorial output was found for this review.

The Council decides complaints about the agency’s activities and about the Director General, reports its conclusions to the Chamber of Deputies in its annual report, and publishes the agendas and minutes of its meetings, the most recent being the 224th, scheduled for 13 October 2026.

AI and digital policy

ČTK has used automated news production since 2018, when it first generated reports on election results from structured data and templates. On 24 April 2023 the agency set out rules for generative AI and reported that elements of automation had been present in its news service for thirty years, that about 3,500 automatically generated texts were held in its Infobank, covering subjects such as election results, fuel prices and traffic statistics, and that such texts carry the editorial marker “rur” and remain subject to human editing, artificial intelligence working in the newsroom only as an assistant.

The agency’s editorial Code now carries a dedicated section of principles for the use of AI tools in ČTK news. Responsibility for journalistic content cannot be transferred to AI. The Code states that AI tools in their current form are not a reliable source of information and that the agency does not use them for research. Generative AI may not be used to create images for news purposes, and confidential corporate or personal data may not be entered into public AI tools.

Classification rationale

ČTK remains classified Independent State-Managed (ISM).

The agency is a public-law institution established by statute, but it is not a state-owned company. It owns and manages its property independently, receives no regular operating subsidy from the Czech government and derives most of its income from commercial services. Its statutory mission, editorial Code and governance arrangements establish explicit requirements for independent and impartial journalism.

The state-managed element lies in the Council’s appointment system. All seven members are elected and recalled by the Chamber of Deputies, without the civil-society nomination procedure or the division of appointments between parliamentary chambers that applies to Czech Television and Czech Radio. The Council appoints and may dismiss the Director General, approves the agency’s budget and supervises its compliance with public-service obligations.

The Council was restored to its statutory seven-member composition in March 2026. Two members elected that year were nominated by parties in the governing coalition: Jiří Ovčáček by ANO and Romana Žatecká by the SPD. The appointments demonstrate the political influence possible under the existing mechanism but do not establish editorial control. No evidence of a sustained editorial line imposed or approved by state authorities was found for this update.

ČTK’s commercial financing provides substantial protection from direct government budgetary influence. Its dependence on paying customers nevertheless creates exposure to changes in the media market, including the proposed reductions in the financing of Czech Television and Czech Radio, with which ČTK renegotiated contracts in 2025.

The classification therefore reflects parliamentary influence over institutional governance combined with commercial financial autonomy and no documented sustained state direction of editorial output.

October 2026