Happy 98th birthday to Croatian Radio and 68th birthday to Croatian Television!
Whether at home, at work, in a car or via mobile phones, the sound coming from the radio is our faithful companion in everyday life, whose content often fills the silence of everyday life and makes our life more beautiful. Can you even imagine your life without radio? This humble, older brother of television has been present in these areas for incredible 98 years, which it celebrates on 15 May, when the start of broadcasting of Radio Zagreb, the first radio station in Croatia, is marked.
Back in 1926, there was only one radio station broadcasting, and in the period of almost a century, the number of radio stations grew to 129, in 2022. Of these, five were state-owned, 14 regional and 110 local radio stations. In the above-mentioned year, all radio stations produced incredible 1 163 967 hours of their own programme. By the type of programme, the largest number of hours belonged to music, informative and entertainment programmes.
In order for everything to function flawlessly, and for us to enjoy the radio broadcasts undisturbed, a total of 1 252 employees were permanently employed at all radio stations in 2022, in an almost equal share for men (50.5%) and for women (49.5%). The radio stations that produced the most hours of own-produced radio programmes were those in the City of Zagreb, the County of Split-Dalmatia and the County of Zagreb.
On the same date, thirty years later, in 1956 to be exact, Television Zagreb, the first television station in Croatia, began broadcasting. The little box became a window to the world and the source of all information, and with its appearance, it forever changed the method of exchange and the availability of information. Although new media are certainly its competition today, television is still an integral part of every household, and according to the latest available data from the
Households Budget Survey in 2022, 99.4% of households had a television.
A total of 24 TV broadcasters operated in 2022, of which eight were state-owned, 11 regional and five local ones, which together produced 201 736 hours of programme within a year. By the type of programme, the most broadcasted were informative, fiction and commercial programmes.
In 2022, a total of 3 550 permanent employees worked in television, of which there were only slightly fewer women (45.6%) than men (54.4%). However, at radio stations, as well as in television broadcasters, employees were hired on the basis of contractual agreements, author’s contracts or performance agreements, and there were a little more than 15 thousand of them in total.
During 2023, almost 180 thousand radio receivers were imported into Croatia, and the three countries from which most of them arrived were China, France and Denmark. In the same year, slightly more than 18 thousand TV sets were imported, mostly from China, the Netherlands and Slovenia.
With this short statistical overview, we wish a happy 98th birthday to Croatian Radio and 68th birthday to Croatian Television, hoping that they will provide us with many more hours of quality programme in the future!
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