It all began in a tent (1923)

1. leden 2016

Radiojournal, the station that would later became Czech Radio, began its broadcast on May 18, 1923.

A mere six months after the first broadcast of the oldest national broadcasting organization in the world, the BBC.

It was a time packed to the brim with positive energy. The world war had ended not long ago, and it seemed as though radio would be able to get everyone on the same jazzy wavelength.

Three centuries later, the Czechs finally shed their uncomfortable propinquity with Austria, and began to enjoy their renewed independence. Nothing was impossible, people reacted to new challenges with pep and without formality.

The first broadcast of Radiojournal boasted the same lack of formality. The transmitter stood near the Kbely airport just outside of Prague. The studio was right next to it, inside a tent borrowed from the Boy Scouts. A carpet was laid out on the grass and on it stood a piano, even though its wheels sank into the soil.

There was only one radio receiver in the whole of Prague. It was placed in front of the screen at the Sanssouci movie theatre, where the cream of the crop from the city gathered. The majority of the first historical broadcast consisted of music, even opera singer Růžena Topinková sang a tune for the microphone. The production was befallen by a thunderstorm and a wet dog made his way into the tent, thus ensuring the very first live broadcast of barking in the history of radio.

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