Happy 2019 to Radio Prague listeners the world over!

As the year draws to a close all of us here at the English department of Radio Prague would like to thank our devoted listeners the world over for their dedication to the station, for being with us and taking the time to drop us a line or write an email to share your views about what you found particularly interesting and what you’d like to hear more of on Radio Prague.

Foto: Czech Radio - Radio Prague

In this special edition of Mailbox I’d like to quote from a few of your letters and emails and reveal a little of what’s in the pipeline for 2019.

As our regular listeners will no doubt have noticed 2018 has been a big anniversary year for us here at Radio Prague –years ending in „8“ hold a special significance and some of these milestone events shaped Czech history for years to come. We marked 1918 the centenary of the founding of independent Czechoslovakia, the Munich agreement in 1938, the Communist take-over in 1948 and fifty years since the Soviet-led invasion that crushed the Prague Spring in 1968.

Velvet Divorce, source: Czech Radio

All of them evoked interest and comments from our listeners – particularly 1968 and 1918. Robert Gauvin wrote from Canada to say he had listened to both Radio Prague and Radio Slovakia International to hear their coverage of the centenary and greatly appreciated both. In fact the two stations had a joint program looking back over the past year, which only goes to show that 25 years after the Velvet Divorce we are still very close.

Emma Dale from the UK says her favourite programs on Radio Prague are about life in the Czech Republic. We have been trying to bring you more on that including reports from outside of Prague courtesy of our Moravian correspondent Vít Pohanka. And you can look forward to more travel tips and lifestyle reports in the coming year.

QSL 2019

Tom Evans from Canada wrote in to say how much he enjoyed our miniseries and videos .We had several mini-series on life in this country – including Czech food classics and Czech architecture. In the coming year we are planning to report on the country’s winter resorts and some of its famous spas. The older ones –on pubs and cafes you can find on YouTube. If you have any ideas on what else you’d like to hear about please let us know at [email protected].

Hans Verner Lolike from Denmark and many others wrote to say thank you for the QSL cards they received from us. Many of our listeners still write in for QSL cards which we kept on although we are no longer on short wave simply because they are so popular. I hope you’ll be pleased to hear that next year you can look forward to a series of QSLs on modern architecture.

Dominik Feri|Photo: Jana Přinosilová, Czech Radio

Shin Makino, one of our many listeners from Japan says he was interested to hear that the youngest Czech MP ever, Dominik Feri, appeared on Politico’s list of people to watch and would like to hear more about his views. We have contacted him about a possible interview and will of course try to bring interviews with as many interesting personalities as we can in the coming year.

In the coming year some of our popular older series –such as From the Archives or My Prague will be available for podcasting.

And if you are living in the Czech Republic you can hear a brief news summary in English on Czech Radio’s Plus channel and Radio Prague’s English language news bulletin on Alexa.

Photo: Covi, Pixabay / CC0

If there’s anything you miss on Radio Prague or would like to find out more about do let us know. The address is [email protected] or write by snail mail to Radio Prague, Vinohradská 12, 120 99, Prague, Czech Republic. You can also follow Radio Prague on Facebook and Twitter. Many thanks again for listening to Radio Prague and for getting in touch. Happy New Year 2019!