Maxim Behar, a prominent Bulgarian PR and social media specialist has been named chairman of Hill+Knowlton Strategies’ Czech office. He will remain CEO and board chairman of the Bulgarian company he founded, M3 Communications Group, Inc., which is an affiliate of Hill+Knowlton Strategies.

The center-right Czech government coalition is seeking to get more diversity of opinions in local, town, and regional council publications, which it argues are currently often propaganda sheets for the parties in power. A proposed new press law would force them to offer alternative views fair coverage, opening up the opportunity for minority party councillors to demand redress. The change should come in ahead of regional elections in October.

In spite of gloomy economic predictions, the head of the group owning the Czech Republic's most popular commercial channel, TV Nova,  sees ad revenue picking up this year, largely as a result of ads being banned from the most-watched channel of the public broadcaster towards the end of 2011. It still might take around two years to end the discounts that advertisers have begun to get used to and to push ad prices up, CME’s Adrian Sarbu warned.

Slovak-born billionaire Andrej Babiš, owner of the Czech agricultural and chemical giant Agrofert Holding, plans to launch a 32-page regional free weekly magazine called 5+2 in March that will give more space to what he called “neglected” issues — and allow the prominent entrepreneur space to “defend himself,” the daily Právo reports.