Media

The first newspaper in Croatia was Ephemerides Zagrabienses, printed in Zagreb in 1771 in Latin, and the first newspaper in Croatian was Kraljski Dalmatin, launched in 1806 in Zadar (it was also published in Italian).

From 1830 onwards, the numbers of newspapers and readers grew steadily. The most important were Danica ilirska, Narodne novine and Obzor. From the 1920s to the 1980s, the highest circulation was reached, influenced by daily newspapers, of which the most significant were Novosti and Jutarnji list (between the two world wars), then Vjesnik, Večernji list and Slobodna Dalmacija (in the Socialist period), while from the 1950s onward, professional modern weekly and fortnightly publications such as Vjesnik u srijedu and Start were particularly widely read. Since the beginning of the 21st century, the print media (the most important newspapers today are dailies Jutarnji list and Večernji list) have been losing ground to Internet portals, including their own.

In 1924, the Zagreb Radio Club was founded, from which Zagreb Radio Station emerged in 1926 (the first radio station in Southeast Europe), which was later succeeded by the Croatian Radio. There are several other national radio networks broadcasting programmes (Otvoreni Radio, Narodni Radio, Hrvatski Katolički Radio, etc.), and a host of regional and local stations. Zagreb Television began broadcasting in 1956 and today, renamed Croatian Television, is a public television company with four national channels (with the digital switchover completed in 2010). RTL and Nova TV also broadcast general-type programmes nationwide on several channels; there are some 20-odd regional and local channels as well as many specialised channels that broadcast over satellite and cable systems or the Internet. Television reached record viewing levels and had most influence from the late 1970s to the turn of the century, when it began to encounter competition from an increasing number of Internet portals.