Talk:Mass media in Communist Czechoslovakia

[Untitled]
I heard a story that the Czechoslovakia government launched "The Beatles" in the 80s as a new hot band (ie. some 25 years late), to pacify the citizens. They would show 60s videos as if they were made yesterday. I strongly presume its fiction, or at best a modification of another story involving another Communist country and another band. I have not been able to find any mention of it on the net. Does anyone know about this or some similar manipulating tactic of their government in this time? --Jens Schriver 11:57, 5 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Nonsense. It wouldn't even work. Maybe this story originally said just that government/party allowed to play Beatles (and similar groups) on radio. --Podlesh 18:30, 25 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Funny what people in the West think about Eastern bloc. Premiere of "A Hard Days Night" in Czechoslovakia was in the autumn 1964 and Beatles were extremly popular here in the sixties. Radio Luxembourg was popular as well. --85.207.40.58 10:00, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Foreign TV
The article states ''The relatively attractive TV programmes from Austria and West Germany had a sizable influence on the population. TV was not jammed by the authorities.'' While TV signals were not jammed surely there were difficulties recieving them since along with the fairly obvious language barrier television broadcasts (and the sets to recieve them) in most Eastern bloc countries used very different technical standards to those used in Western Europe. Frequency ranges, Sound/Vision spacing and Colour encoding were all incompatable (meaning if the broadcasts could be tuned in at all they would probably have appeared in black and white with no sound). It is possible (for a price) to obtain "multi-standard" TV's but in a command economy where most production is controlled by the state how widely available would such sets have been in Czechslovakia ? 213.40.103.77 (talk) 13:26, 22 August 2008 (UTC)


 * They were very available. At least in the 80's, TV sets able to receive both PAL and SECAM and both 5.5MHz and 6.5MHz sound carriers were the norm. You would have to search long to find a new TV set not being able to receive (e.g.) Austrian TV (most probably a Romanian import :-)). Anyway, the technical standards were not very different (compared with e.g. the differences between USA and Western Europe). Frequency ranges overlapped, the only noticeable effect was that OIRT FM Radio could be heard on CCIR channel nr. (I think) 4, if you tuned the TV carefully. Older TVs were B&W anyway, so PAL vs. SECAM was not an issue, and there were many manuals published how to re-tune the sound demodulator to 5.5MHz. And the TVs imported from "the West" were often multinorm as well, thanks to France and their SECAM... rado (talk) 17:26, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Title
The usage of term "communist" is misleading. While the governing party of Socialist Republic of Czechoslovakia was identified as communist, it was beyond the point of being communist so it was primarily identified as socialist. Its better to call page Mass Media in Socialist Czechoslovakia, as it was identified as a socialist republic from their part. --Comrade-yutyo (talk) 08:52, 29 September 2020 (UTC)