104 Research Studies Communication Today ABSTRACT: The development of Czech media during the last 25 years has been influenced by commercialisation, which has characterised its transformation from that of a communist regime to its current globalised context. The commercialisation of local media has manifested itself through the notable erosion of its particular local char- acteristics (delocalization). The main aim of the article is to find the answer to the question of how has the content of the particular local press changed in terms of localization or delocalization due to the commerciali- sation development trends. This text uses a case study approach (content analysis and in-depth interviews) to analyse the Vltava-Labe-Press (VLP) publishing house that largely dominates the Czech local press market. In the first phase I conducted a series of semi-structured in-depth interviews with editors-in-chief in the VLP’s newsrooms and managers in the VLP publishing house. This was followed by a quantitative content analysis of two newspapers between 1989 and 2009 focused on changes in editorial content and changes in the formal presentation of content. The main question of the case study is, how did the local press content published by Vltava-Labe-Press change between 1989 and 2009 in terms of localization and delocalization. The premise was that commercialisation leads to delocalization, diminishing local character and production of the content, and hence between 1989 and 2009 the share of converged and centrally produced contents increased in se- lected Czech local dailies. The analysis demonstrates an inverse relationship between management localiza- tion efforts and the manifestation of local content in the press. Consequently, the delocalized character of the Czech local press is likely to have an adverse effect on the democratic and political empowerment of local communities. KEY WORDS: local press, Czech press, commercialisation, delocalization, content analysis, Vltava-Labe-Press publishing house Introduction Is the Czech local press actually local? The question may seem banal but its significance becomes obvi- ous once we take into account some of the key roles that local press plays in democratic societies – most impor- CZECH LOCAL PRESS CONTENT: WHEN MORE IS ACTUALLY LESS Lenka WASCHKOVÁ CÍSAŘOVÁ Mgr. Lenka Waschková Císařová, Ph.D. Faculty of Social Studies Masaryk University Joštova 10 602 00 Brno Czech Republic cisarova@fss.muni.cz Mgr. Lenka Waschková Císařová, Ph.D. works as an Assistant Professor at the Department of Media Studies and Journalism, Faculty of Social Studies, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic. Her teaching and research focus on journalism studies, media ownership, local media and transformation of media markets. She is the author of the monograph about the Czech local media development and several journal articles and book chapters. She has been working as a reporter and editor-in-chief in local newspapers for more than a decade. Communication Today, 2016, Vol. 7, No. 1