Mass media in Communist Czechoslovakia

Government concern about control of the mass media was such that it was illegal to own a duplicating machine or to reproduce more than eleven copies of any printed material. Nevertheless, a fairly wide distribution of underground publications (popularly known as samizdat throughout Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union) that were established during the Nazi occupation continued throughout communist rule into the 1980s.

Newspapers

• The chief newspaper of the KSČ was the Prague daily, Rudé Právo, which, with a circulation of 900,000 in the 1980s, was the most widely read and most influential newspaper in the country. Its editor in 1987 was Zdeněk Hoření, a member of the Secretariat of the KSČ Central Committee.
• Its sister publication, Bratislava's Pravda, was the organ of the KSS.
• Other dailies with large circulations were e. g. Lidová Demokracie, published by the Czechoslovak People's Party (see National Front); Mladá Fronta in Bohemia/ Smena in Slovakia published by the Socialist Union of Youth (see National Front); Práce in Bohemia / Práca in Slovakia published by the Revolutionary Trade Union Movement; Svobodné Slovo, published by the Czechoslovak Socialist Party, and Ľud, published by the Slovak Revival Party.

The Czechoslovak Press Agency (in Czech: Československá tisková kancelář, in Slovak: Československá tlačová kancelária ČTK / ČTK) received a state subsidy and was controlled by the federal government through its Presidium.