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Back by popular demand, it’s the New Year’s programme on Radio Prague! In this year’s edition Jan Velinger and Christian Falvey spoof talk radio as well as popular shows like Czechs Today. Along the way they also cover topics such as drinking in the workplace, cute sound technicians, and the future of the station in 2010.

This week in Mailbox we look back at 2009 and read from your letters of support and encouragement regarding the future of Radio Prague. Listeners quoted: Charles Konecny, Simon Hockenhull, Jayanta Chakrabarty, Rich Bisignano.

The hugely successful Prague Zoo is undergoing a change of management. As the director credited with revitalising the zoo over the last 12 years, Petr Fejk, departs for a position in New York, a lot of expectations will be put on his successor, Miroslav Bobek, who was named on Tuesday.

This week in Mailbox: the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Iron Curtain, reception in New Zealand, listeners’ response to possible budget cuts, trying to contact Mr. George Scott from England. Listeners quoted: Evelyn Coviello, Jayanta Chakrabarty, Terje Nielsen, Hans Verner Lollike, Michael Watling, Frank Muzika, Arnost Polak.

This week in Mailbox: problems with downloading sound from Radio Prague’s website, US President Barack Obama congratulating the Czechs on 91 years of statehood, Czech scientist František Běhounek, reactions to proposed budget cuts. Listeners quoted: Colin Law, Jaroslav B. Tusek, Karl Strauss, Lenfant Lee, Ian Morrison, Atsuhisa Kageyama.

This week in Mailbox: the possible implications of Radio Prague's budget cuts. We quote from your e-mails asking about the future of Radio Prague. Listeners quoted: Peter MacKinnon, Mike Terry, Sheryl Paszkiewicz, Victor Latavish, Roger Tidy, Christopher Lewis, Risto Vähäkainu, Andy Reid, Brad Grier, and Chrissy Brand.

The acting director of Czech Radio, Richard Medek, was elected the new CEO of the country’s public broadcaster on Wednesday. Mr Medek, who was appointed the acting director after the Czech Radio Council removed the previous CEO in July, said his priorities included a 10 percent job cut and a licence fee raise. Mr Medek was previously Czech Radio’s programme director, and has also worked in several commercial media outlets.

For a few weeks just after the fall of communism, Radio Prague went silent. Its days as a tool in the Cold War were over. After huge staff cuts, and with the old communist managers gone, Radio Prague went back on air early in 1990. A new era began for the English Section, and with so many sweeping social and economic changes under way, there was plenty to report about.

It’s the first day of school, autumn is nearly upon us, and as you might have noticed there are changes too on the Radio Prague website. Radio Prague’s Editor-in-Chief Gerald Schubert came into the studio to explain what’s new and why.

Václav Kasík has been dismissed as the director of the public broadcaster Czech Radio (of which Radio Prague is part). He was removed by an extraordinary meeting of the Czech Radio Council, who appointed head of programming Richard Medek as acting head of the station. The council said it had replaced Mr Kasík because renovations of Czech Radio’s historic building on Prague’s Vinohradská St had gone over budget and for hiring a person without the required security clearance to head the station’s “secretariat”. Václav Kasík had headed Czech Radio since July 1999.