From Poděbrady's transmitters to honouring Karel Gott: How Radio Prague conquered the airwaves (6)
From reflections in the ionosphere to the musical oasis of Interprogram. Dive into the history of Radio Prague, which connected countries and offered popular music in exchange for political proclamations.
The international service of Czech Radio, now better known under the banner of Radio Prague International, has been keeping the world informed about events in Czechia for an impressive 90 years. While today's listeners can rely on crystal-clear audio streamed via the internet, the reality of international broadcasting was vastly different for decades. Reaching listeners even in the most remote corners of the globe depended on a small technological miracle: shortwave radio. These unique frequencies made it possible to cover astonishing distances, creating invisible communication bridges across vast oceans.
The secret behind this long-distance transmission lay in the physical properties of radio waves and their natural refraction in the atmosphere. "Shortwave signals do not travel in a straight line along the Earth's surface. They propagate through reflections from a medium in the upper layers of the atmosphere... To reach North America, for example, we use three reflections between the ionosphere and the surface of the Earth or the ocean," explained Oldřich Číp, a renowned expert and long-time head of the international organization responsible for coordinating shortwave frequencies.
The remarkable reach of the technology was also confirmed by his successor, Jeff White, who was ironically drawn to the field by broadcasts from what was then Czechoslovakia. "The hops can be thousands of kilometres long, so with a 50- or 100-kilowatt transmitter you can literally reach the whole world," White says.
The Golden Age of the Poděbrady transmitters
Czechoslovakia's international broadcasting breakthrough came in the 1930s, shortly after the pioneering efforts of Britain and Italy. The country's first successful experiments with the remarkable new technology took place at the unique radio centre in Poděbrady, using two giant transmitter masts, each 150 metres high.
One of the first radio engineers, Karel Koníček, vividly summed up those landmark moments: "It was in 1936 that the Ministry of Posts and Telegraphs surprised listeners and the public with the news that its radio centre in Poděbrady had begun testing our first transoceanic shortwave connection," the engineer recalled with unmistakable nostalgia.
With the exception of the forced interruption during the Nazi occupation, this strategically important international service broadcast continuously for nearly three-quarters of a century. The final chapter of Radio Prague's shortwave era came on January 31, 2011. Although the decision to switch off the transmitters was a difficult one for the station's management, it was financially unavoidable.
"Shortwave broadcasting is simply incredibly expensive because it consumes enormous amounts of electricity... It cost millions—indeed tens of millions—of crowns a year," recalls Miroslav Krupička, then director of Radio Prague, explaining the pragmatic reasons behind the shutdown.
Interprogram: Ideology hidden behind hit songs
Before the advent of the internet, domestic shortwave transmitters were intended exclusively for audiences abroad and remained silent for listeners at home. One notable exception in Czechoslovakia was the legendary Interprogram of Radio Prague, launched on May 8, 1972, as a by-product of the international service.
The official explanation for its creation sounded perfectly innocent and highly practical. "It is aimed at Western Europe and also at tourists spending their holidays in Czechoslovakia... We provide services such as weather forecasts and play songs to make their holidays more enjoyable," deputy editor-in-chief Jana Špíšková explained in 1978.
The communist authorities, however, had a different objective: to deliver propaganda in an attractive and entertaining format. Between generous blocks of Western pop music, listeners were required to endure carefully measured doses of ideological commentary. Former editor Václav Richter recalls the station's strict format: "It started in Czech, with five minutes of news at the beginning of the hour, followed by ten minutes of music. Then there were five minutes of news in German and another ten minutes of music," Richter says, describing the rigid hourly structure. Working in the international service was not for everyone. "There were many times when I wanted to leave the radio because it was so unpleasant and depressing to work there," he adds, referring to the compulsory political rhetoric of the period.
Director Jana Hořínková, by contrast, remembers enjoying the creative freedom that came with the livebroadcasts. "For me, it was actually quite good. We played good music—40 percent of it was Western music... There was a certain adrenaline to it because live broadcasting always has an adrenaline rush," she recalls.
Absurd embargoes and the uproar over Shut Up You Face
While programme editors enjoyed surprisingly greater freedom in the more liberal second half of the 1980s, earlier they had to strictly avoid performers placed on the notorious pink Embargo lists. Despite the vigilance of the censors, the occasional harmless pop song still slipped through, sometimes causing an entirely absurd scandal.
Hořínková now laughs when recalling the trouble caused by the Australian-American hit Shut Up You Face, which she boldly played immediately after a political speech by the chairwoman of the Czechoslovak Women's Union.
"It came after the station identification—'This is Radio Prague Interprogram'—and then I put on Shut Up You Face. Everything seemed fine, we carried on broadcasting, and about an hour later my boss called me completely beside himself," Hořínková recalls with amusement. She remembers his frantic reaction: "The Central Committee called! We have to stop this immediately. Put on brass band music and from now on—don't play anything else."
The Golden Nightingale and smart listeners
Interprogram's popularity grew rapidly, with the greatest appreciation—measured in sacks of listeners' letters—coming from an unexpected place: West Germany. For German audiences, the station became a steady source of broadcasts featuring pop legend Karel Gott.
"Our main audience was in Germany. It was enormous. We were flooded with letters because Interprogram had, to some extent, become what I would call Karel Gott's radio station," says Václav Richter.
The Czech pop legend inspired near-hysteria across the border, although for some music editors his constant presence on the air felt more like an endless routine. "On Saturdays and Sundays we had a listeners' request show, which could be quite demanding given our audience's taste. I never really liked Karel Gott, even as a child, and suddenly I had to play him in large doses," recalls Martina Schneibergová, then an editor with the German-language service.
Despite the oppressive atmosphere of the normalization era, Interprogram became a window onto the outside world, attracting hundreds of thousands of listeners at home as well. Audiences quickly discovered how to make the most of the musical oasis while happily ignoring the political messaging. Former audience research conducted by the station illustrates the point, as manager Petr Dvořák recalls with a smile: "It clearly showed that whenever the news came on during Interprogram, listeners would go and make themselves a coffee or step away for a moment. Then they would come back and happily listen to the next 13 minutes of music."
This unique format—despite being heavily burdened by propaganda—which filled both the domestic and international airwaves for two decades, finally came to an end in April 1992.
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