Archive and Programme Funds is an archive department of Czech Television, formerly Czechoslovak Television, with three workplaces in Prague, Brno and Ostrava. Although some audiovisual programmes and documents have been deposited on Czechoslovak television since its establishment in 1953, a separate television archive was formed only in 1965. In spite of gaining independence and, later, the status of being an archive of special importance, APF continued to struggle with both low capacity and technically unsuitable depositories. However, the archive managed to get five grants that continue to the present: the Telemagnetic and Digital Audiovisual Recordings Fund, the Film Fund, the Audiovisual Fund, the Photo Fund and the Fund of Documents.
Throughout the Communist regime in Czechoslovakia, APF was indirectly subordinated to state power and did not participate in alternative culture. However, the work of the archive was not just pro-regime - the archivists could only process pieces of work and associated materials produced and broadcast by the Television, on the other hand, they did so according to the generally accepted rules of archiving and historiography. Thanks to this, the archive owns a huge number of original materials without post-production changes that can be used in current scientific research.
Nowadays, APF is primarily responsible for the management of all audiovisual records of the Television, including their technical preparation and distribution for CT departments. At the same time, it documents some of the older audiovisual programmes and takes over and catalogs documents. The archive also provides research and information services to a wide range of users - from creators who are involved in Czech Television production to external researchers who come to study. APF, as part of Czech Television, has an extensive amount of technical equipment (including film laboratories) and professional staff that enable digitization, transcription and restoration of most archival records. In recent years, APF CT was intensively devoted to the digitization of all funds to ensure their rescue and accessibility for the needs of the Television as well as for the public.
