Czech online media churn out content, but in the Instagram efficiency ranking they are almost last. The Social Pulse study, which the agency HUSTLE is measuring in the third quarter of 2026, compares sectors by how well they entertain and engage their audiences. Online media have one of the highest post cadences of all the sectors measured, yet in the overall score they finished 20th out of 21. A sector whose product is content is among the weakest on the market on a social network.
The study deliberately avoids the numbers that media outlets boast about in their media kits. The Social Efficiency Score, on a scale of 0 to 100, weighs performance against audience size, so a large account is more of a burden than an advantage. “Reach and followers can be bought. A genuine relationship on a social network cannot,” sums up the principle Josef Olšák, performance strategist at HUSTLE.
The score is made up of six components, and budget is not one of them
The final number is built from six components. The heaviest is audience engagement (30%), that is, how many people react to the content relative to account size. Video readiness has 20%, publishing consistency, community management and content nativeness 15% each, and follower growth 5%. The study counts neither budget nor follower numbers in the score. It measures only Instagram, over a rolling 90-day window and at most the last 60 posts; anything younger than 48 hours is left out, because engagement is still picking up. A brand makes it into the ranking only with at least 3,000 followers, at least eight posts in the last 90 days and nationwide reach.
According to HUSTLE, it is the first benchmark of its kind in the Czech Republic, launched at the end of August 2026. “We wanted to give companies and agencies an objective mirror, a yardstick that has been missing here,” says Adam Brousek, managing director of HUSTLE. Methodologically, the study draws on established benchmarks, including Rival IQ, Gartner Digital IQ and the Digital Marketing Maturity model from Google and BCG.
Eight brands above the median, Forbes Czechia below it
Novinky.cz leads the sector with a score of 53 out of 100, and the segment median is 28.6 points. Behind it come Lidovky.cz and Blesk.cz, tied on 42 points, and Reflex on 40. Fifth and sixth place are shared by REFRESHER Czechia and CzechCrunch with 32 points each, and seventh and eighth by Heroine and iDNES.cz with 31. Below the median the study no longer publishes scores and lists brands alphabetically; they include Aktuálně.cz, Deník N, Hospodářské noviny, Respekt, Seznam Zprávy and Forbes Czechia. Differences between neighbours in the lower half are, according to the study, smaller than measurement noise, so a ranking would claim more than the numbers can bear.
At the top are titles that work on Instagram with strong visuals and quick audience response, tabloid and lifestyle alike. Brands built on text and analysis, which is to say much of economic and serious news, remain below the line. On a network held together by images and video, longer text is a structural disadvantage.
Sectors whose business is not directly tied to content, meanwhile, do better. Mobile operators have a median overall score of 59 points, estate agencies 52 and energy 50. The segment that lives off content remains far below them.
Video is the sector’s weakest point
They publish a median of 22.8 posts a week, and posts without a single comment are rarer for them than in most other sectors (17% against a market median of 56%). What that volume contains is weaker. Reels make up only 17% of posts, and vertical video is at the same level, which drops the sector to the tail of the whole market. Media outlets publish plenty of videos, and with a median of 3.3 a week they are at the top in that too, yet it is precisely in the format that Instagram pushes into reach that they have the lowest share.
Efficiency shows in engagement. The sector’s median engagement rate is 0.43%, while Novinky.cz, as the leader, reaches 1.19%. What decides the gap between the leading brand and the middle of the sector is above all how the content resonates. The sector’s content and format variety has a median of 50 against a market norm of 62.5, and that holds across all brands.
This is a logic that creators on social networks mastered before media houses did. Native vertical video and engagement relative to audience decide reach, regardless of how big a newsroom stands behind the account. A brand with daily output and hundreds of posts a month loses out to someone who shoots less, but in a format and tone that belong on the platform. The mirror that Social Pulse holds up points to the process behind the content more than to its volume.
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