This from the folks who were fine with TV Nova's expensive new premiere edition of Big Brother last fall, which may have been the first Czech version of the global hit reality series but which was nevertheless far behind the curve of current broadcast fashion. Though it created a major buzz initially, viewership dropped off fast, and Nova's market-savvy corporate owners, Central European Media Enterprises, the Bahamas-based media giant owned by cosmetics heir Ron Lauder, took note.

Taking stock of this event and many other such boondoggles, including some lesser excesses on the news side, the head office decided a shake-up was in order. Romanian Adrian Sarbu, who had turned around the network's stations on his home turf, was brought in to run things, and attention was turned away from expensive homemade spectacles toward more local and international series and movies with better margins. And a few Nova news stars, like Pavel Zuna, have split.

Prima TV, ever playing catch-up, has now decided it should staff its own newscasts with couples, as TV Nova does, rather than just one presenter. Word has gotten around that Prima is courting Zuna in hopes he'll take a seat next to a nightly Prima news princess like Martina Kociánová or Štěpánka Duchková, but Zuna has denied any such talks.

Others let down by the reality-show boom have been several former contestants of Big Brother, several of whom believed they would find stardom, riches and dates galore after being on the show. Some have taken to sending their revealing holiday pictures to the tabloid papers, who generally take a ho-hum view nowadays, while others SMS the papers when they are headed to clothing-optional swimming places in Prague.

Poor Shrek, the big galoot who finally outgunned all the other BB contestants last year, is back at a day job for a glue company, forced to do in-store product demonstrations where they affix his boots to the ceiling and, erm, let him hang.