President’s address has lowest viewership in 6 years

President Miloš Zeman’s end-of-year address, which aired on Czech Television and the commercial TV Nova on 26 December, attracted the least viewers of all the presidential New Year’s addresses in the past 6 years. Approximately 1,266,000 people over the age of 15 watched the pre-taped program, almost 700 thousand viewers fewer that last year’s address by Václav Klaus. Television producers said that one of the reasons for the low viewership is that the President’s Office did not announce the change of the date of the address until quite late, and many people did not find out about it in time. Mr. Zeman haddecided to give his address to the nation over Christmas, instead of on New Year’s Day, as his predecessors have done since 1948.