Prague - Every week several tens of thousands of Americans can watch programs dedicated entirely to the Czech Republic over internet.
The Czech-American TV station also broadcasts in more than 60 American cities on the channel 19 of the cable television.
The TV station broadcasts only in English from the Western suburbs of Chicago where there are about 100,000 Americans of Czech descent.
The American viewers, however, can be found all over the country - for example in Nebraska, Kansas, Texas, California, Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan, Florida, Dakota, Oklahoma and New Jersey.
The TV station focuses mainly on Czech culture, traditions and life in Bohemia and Moravia, leaving the Czech politics out of scope because its American, Australian and Canadian audience is not that much interested in the political scene of the Czech Republic.
Renewing traditions
"We broadcast in English because we mainly target Czech Americans who are citizens of the USA with Czech descent and also other Americans who are interested in Czech culture," said John Honner, the founder of Czech-American TV.
"When we launched our broadcasting, Czechs would write to us and ask why we did not broadcast in Czech. The reason is that we primarily do not target Czech citizens but the US population. Most of the Czech Americans do not speak Czech anyway," adds John Honner, himself of Czech origin.
The TV station is a platform where Americans with Czech roots can brush up their traditions that their families no longer keep.
Volunteer work
The Czech-American TV station is financed by its own audiences and by the non-governmental sector. Viewers who enjoy the documents and programs on the Czech Republic as well as the Czech American community either send their contributions or volunteer.
"Most of them are somehow connected to the Czech Republic but sometimes someone gets involved who does not have any ties to the Czech lands - like this viewer not long ago who had an Irish name," said John Honner.
Five years after its first broadcast, a new association "Czech American TV - Czech Branch" was founded in the Czech Republic to provide footage from the homeland country.
The TV station has 8 film crews available - some of them are students who make their own clips to promote Czech culture in the US and improve their own skills in the same time.
Learn Czech via TV
The most popular are programs that cover the Czech culture, Czech recipes, documents on landmarks or folklore. One of the programs is also "Czech Class", which is a program with the help of which viewers can learn Czech.
"Our archive could become a virtual museum of Czech traditions and culture for the Czechs in the future," said John Honner.
The TV station promotes not only the Czech Republic in general but also tens of Czech cities and communities. It cooperates with the Czech governmental agency Czechtourism that promotes the Czech Republic worldwide.
The Czech-American TV does not have ambitions to substitute Czech TV news channels in the US. It even recommends to its viewers who speak Czech to follow Czech radio and TV broadcasting as well as newspapers and magazines and online servers.
The archive of Czech-American TV is available at www.catvusa.com. The TV also plans to get in the satellite TV net and possible attract more viewers.
Aktuálně.cz CzechNews has started to cooperate with the TV station; its first report on Prague´s carnival parade is to be broadcast this week.
