Marina Urbanikova

Honored to receive the Ivo Možný Prize for Societal Contribution. As public service media becomes increasingly politically contested—with opposition plans to merge CT and CRo, reduce their remit, and fund them via state budget—the real fun will begin after the parliamentary elections this autumn.

Battle Over Czech Public Service Broadcaster: Another Rerun The Czech government is looking to push through a license fee hike for public service broadcasters before the autumn election, when the populists are expected to return to power.

Today, Czech MPs approved an increase in licence fees for public service media and introduced a system of automatic indexation based on inflation. Given the current climate across Europe, it is almost a miracle. I spoke about the developments for Balkan Insight: balkaninsight.com/2025/02/26/b...

Our study on what the public expects from public service media - including an in-depth dive into what audiences actually mean when they say they want objective news - is out now in Media, Culture & Society. With @ksmejkal.bsky.social

Very happy to see this book out! With @marpal.bsky.social, we contributed a chapter on the notorious underrepresentation of women in the media.

Pigeons attack the Grossmünster. #Zurich

Manuel Puppis, Marko Milosavljevic, Marina Urbanikova & Patric Raemy in a lecture hall at the University of Fribourg.

Look which media policy scholar spontaneously dropped by in Fribourg: Marko Milosavljevic visited @marinaurbanikova.bsky.social, Patric Raemy and me on his way from Ljubljana to Prague

Many agenda setters (curiously, mostly middle-aged men within the X platform) argue Czech Radio should not produce podcasts, claiming it’s unfair competition to the private sector. And the best of all – they’re not interested in female sexuality, so it’s not a public service topic. Hilarious. 3/3

Radio Wave, the PSM channel for young and young-minded listeners, released a podcast series "Pleasure" about female sexuality, which addresses a number of serious and underrepresented topics. Elsewhere, PSM might have received praise for this, but in the Czech Republic, it sparked a storm. 2/3

While the proposal to increase licence fees for Czech public service media (for the first time in 15 years) is in parliament, the debate over the scope and definition of public service remit is taking on absurd dimensions in places. 1/3