Next-Gen Media House for Vlny

1. The Challenge: Win the war for attention and avoid suffocating in AI smog

The current media market is in a spasm. We are flooded with content, and the classic model is dying. To solve a clear problem: how to build a medium from scratch that dominates a small market, is not dependent on dysfunctional display ads, and can break through in an era where generative AI churns out generic content. To acknowledge that in today’s brutal war for attention, locking everything behind a paywall immediately is suicide for new players. It was necessary to approach it from a completely different angle.

2. The Approach: People as brands and content that makes waves

While other publishers use AI to generate more empty content, to go in the exact opposite direction. To bet on “real reality.”

• People as strong brand assets: In the AI era, personal brand and authentic human context hold the highest value. To build a business model around senior journalists and publicists. To highlight their faces, their names, and their unique perspectives.

• Be reactionary, not passive: Vlny is not about parroting what just happened. To give events context. To create a topic, stir it up, dive deep in a podcast, chop it into articles, and deliver it exactly where it belongs via campaigns and social networks. Sometimes laid back (Flow), sometimes cutting to the bone (Deep).

3. The Execution: In-house studio, zero barriers, and video as the queen

To connect the editorial team with authors and forge them into one bulletproof organism.

• Winning the war for attention: To keep the core content completely free. To understand that in the current battle for users’ focus, a strict paywall only feeds global giants like Netflix. To capture the audience first, maximize reach, and save the paywall for highly specialized premium formats (masterclasses, miniseries) later.

• Agency inside the media: To operate Vlny.cz as a media house with an integrated creative agency. To service clients from A to Z – to invent a creative campaign, shoot it, write it, target it, and evaluate it.

• Custom monetization: Classic ads interest no one. To create turnkey solutions for partners. To connect business with politics, build personal or industry podcasts for clients, and integrate them directly into meaningful content.

• Lightning-fast format creation: Thanks to an in-house studio and dramaturgy team, not just to react to current topics with an article. To invent, produce, and launch a completely new format or section overnight.

• Distribution and video-first: Content is king, video is queen. To expand reach through regional televisions, collaborate with other major market players (Forum24, Economia), and use algorithmic distribution to ruthlessly deliver content to those who will react to it. To aim toward the television format of the future.

4. Project Roles: Steering the vision and architecture

• Martin Kermes: To define the creative vision of “real reality,” to curate a team of senior authors, and to strategically connect the worlds of politics and business through deep context.

• Martin Jedlička: To architect the “agency-inside-media” model, to build a business strategy on the power of personal brands, and to manage a complex distribution network including regional TV integration.

5. The Result: An ecosystem that grows organically and sets the direction

To create a colossus unparalleled on the market. The core content is accessible for free, literally conquering the competition in the war for attention. Exclusive know-how, masterclasses, and miniseries will earn their keep in future premium formats.