The first Czech television outside the borders of the Czech Republic, Nová Vize, was founded in 2003 by Markéta Slepčíková. Czech TV production was able to be established in Toronto thanks to the interest of the multicultural station OMNI 1, which provides airtime to independent producers of different communities, of which over 80 live in Toronto. Czechs are therefore among the lucky 25 who have their own television program.
In its 20 years of existence, Noví Vize has already produced 1,000 thirty-minute programs and three full-length documentaries for the Canadian public: Three Waves – about the emigration of Czechs and Slovaks to Canada, Divadlo za rohem – about expatriate theater in Vancouver and Slovaks in Canada – about Slovak emigration to Canada .
New Vision premieres every Saturday and has several reruns throughout the week on OMNI 1, in Ontario and British Columbia. Between 2006–2011, she also broadcast in Quebec, but for a different TV station.
The main purpose of multicultural productions in Canada is the maintenance of national languages, which means that thanks to Nova Vizi every week, once even in prime time, the premiere is on Saturday at nine o’clock in the evening, it is broadcast in Czech on one of the state cable channels, and already for a period of 20 years.
The basis of the broadcast content is the life of the Czech and Slovak communities in Ontario and elsewhere in Canada. Slovak because emigrants from Czechoslovakia still feel like Czechoslovaks and I follow the events in the Slovak community with the same interest as in the Czech one.
Nová Vize brings reports from various community events, presents successful Czech Canadians, but also follows cooperation between the Czech Republic and Canada on a diplomatic, cultural and commercial basis. She filmed many reports on the visits of Czech politicians to Canada as well as leading Czech artists.
Viewers are also very interested in the tourist attractions of the Czech Republic. The viewership potential of New Vision in Ontario is 50,000 viewers, but not everyone watches every week, so the real number of viewers for each program is about 7-10,000.
Last year, Nová Vize began to cooperate with TV Praha, which broadcasts for Prague and its surroundings, therefore for about 2 million viewers. Every day, 1 Nové Vize program is presented here, and Nová Vize broadcasts programs from Prague in Canada on a barter basis. This greatly expands the audience for Nova Vizi, especially in the Czech Republic, where it gains awareness and the possibility of greater promotion.
Producer Markéta Slepčíková was awarded the Kramer award for independent journalism in Prague in June 2021.
Other plans of Nové Viz include the production of a YouTube channel, where it would show a cross-section of its best programs in 20 years, as well as business cooperation between Canada and the Czech Republic, where Nové Viz would succeed in acquiring advertisers from companies from the Czech Republic and, conversely, offer Nové Viz viewers interesting services in the Czech Republic.
