Flash in the pan for Czechs

Baltimore Sun journalist H. L. Mencken once noted memorably that "nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public".

Too bad he never had a chance to see the present-day Czech Republic. The Swiss proprietors of the tabloid daily Blesk (Flash) are in no danger of bankruptcy. But neither is their paper having the expected impact on a market dominated by middle-of-the-road products.

Michael Fosdal, head of social sciences at Oxford Tutorial College and visiting lecturer at the American College, Prague, pointed to initial success - with sales peaking at 260,000, followed by decline to a current circulation of 152,000, trailing well in the wake of two competitors. "It did well in the early stages, when there was a great sense of excitement and experiment in the wake of the changes of 1989. It is not that it is a bad paper - it is a very well done Sun or Bild-style tabloid. But it does not fit in with the general social outlook of the target audience of working-class Czechs."

They are more likely to opt instead for two former Communist titles - Mlada Fronta Dnes, "A middle-of-the-road, rather Daily Mail-ish paper which sells around 350,000", and the once-infamously hardline Rude Pravo.

Mr Fosdal noted that in many cases the editorial staff remained the same, although the papers had changed their line. "I think one explanation is that Czech history this century has been punctuated by a series of breaks and upheavals - 1919, 1939, 1945, 1968 and 1989. This has created a desire for stability and continuity and it looks as though papers that have changed their line, but maintained a sense of continuity by keeping the same title have done best."

Tastes remain conservative: "There is no objection to nude pin-ups in magazines - there is a thriving market for that. But not in newspapers. That doesn't seem right to people."

And the journalism itself remains restrained, self-censoring and conservative. During the last general election campaign newspapers discovered that a son of opposition Social Democrat leader Milos Zeman, had attempted to commit suicide but the story was not run until after the election.

Frantisek Vonderka, editor of Blesk said: "Although I am the editor of a tabloid there are certain ethics. And some stories go beyond these ethics."