Prague - A young media project started in 2009 that was supposed to pioneer the field of hyperlocal journalism in the Czech Republic ends before it had even a chance to fully develop and show its potential.

PPF Group, which invested EUR 8 mil into the project called Naseadresa.cz (nase adresa means our address in Czech), decided to kill it. 

The hyperlocal media project started in June 2009 under the umbrella of PPF Media, a company owned by PPF Group, attracted much attention in the Czech Republic as well as abroad, with a story appearing in New York Times.

PPF is an international group that invests in finance and bank sector and real estates in Central-East Europe and Asia. PPF Group is owned by Petr Kellner, the richest person in the Czech Republic who was listed as the 89th wealthiest person in the world in 2010 by Forbes. In addition, Kellner was included in the list of top 50 business leaders in the emerging markets by British Financial Times.

Read more: Richest Czech gets richer with a lifetime deal
Read more: PPF buys assets of Czech-Slovak investment group J&T

Planned expansion

Naseadresa had four main offices which issued printed regional weekly newspapers, in some cases adjusted to particular smaller cities in the districts. It also run special on-line news coverage for those cities.

In addition, Naseadresa was planning to open 40 new offices in the following two or three months, and another 40 offices in 2011, Aktuálně.cz has learned from a reliable source in Naseadresa.

"The pilot project, consisting of PPF Media running web pages with hyperlocal news coverage and issuing weekly newspapers in seven regions in the Czech Republic, did not fulfill the expected rate of economic return focused on by PPF Group," the group explained in its press release.

Employee: Liquidation, not sale

"It is a nonsense. How could something that was still being prepared pay off? How could a handful of isolated district weekly newspapers pay off? This was not the purpose of the pilot project," said a journalist that participated in the project. He added that PPF Group has changed its strategy and now does not want to invest in projects worth of less than EUR 8 mil. Even though the group speaks of a limit of EUR 4 mil in its press release.

"PPF Group has reached an agreement with investor Richard Benýšek who is buying PPF Media," PPF Group informed, refusing to give any details of the agreement.

PPF Media will be incorporated into OIN Group owned by Benýšek.

"All employees will be informed about next steps, which include restructuring the company", said Oldřich Babický, a PR representative to Benýšek.

"It (Naseadresa) was handed to him (Benýšek) for liquidation", said a journalist from Naseadresa.

It was planned that the news coverage would be created by professional journalists in cooperation with external contributors from local communities. The project was supposed to generate profit through commissions and local-level advertisement. Also, PPF founded a private media research and education center in Prague.