Radio Prague International gets a new jingle
On the occasion of World Radio Day, Radio Prague International is updating its signature jingle.
Every radio station has its own signature jingle – a short melody that reminds you of what you are listening to. Usually it’s just a few tones, or a snippet of a famous tune. Jingles were first used before the beginning of a broadcast on a specific radio wavelength. It would be played several times with the aim to help listeners tune in their devices to the correct frequency. The jingle would then be played at irregular intervals, usually after a time announcement, and would be followed by an announcement of what station people are listening to.
The subsequent communist era brought about major ideological changes, which also reflected themselves into the country’s foreign broadcasting service. From the beginning of the 1950s up to 1989, the Radio Prague International jingle was from the song "Kupředu levá", or Forward, left, not one step backward.
The Velvet Revolution in 1989 brought about many changes, and one of them was a switch back to Radio Prague International’s original jingle based around the New World Symphony of one of Czechia’s greatest composers Antonín Dvořák.
But times change fast and radio is course constantly evolving. Our station has therefore chosen a new jingle, which is nevertheless still based around Dvořák’s famous symphony, as author, Martin Hůla, explains.
„That snippet from Dvorak’s New World Symphony is a characteristic jingle for Radio Prague International. I wanted to create a system which would make it easier to further develop the station’s sound, so I slightly changed the tempo and simplified the sound melodically and harmonically. The related sounds, their basic undertones, are based around this changed, making for a compact whole. I think that i tis precisely these consolidated basic undertones, which will make it easier to add further variations and sounds on top o fit in the future.“
