Czech public media go on strike against Babiš plan to fund broadcasting from state budget

Images

×

Thousands join Czech protest against public media financing plan euronews.com

Staff at Czech Television and Czech Radio stopped work on Tuesday, and thousands of demonstrators rallied across the Czech Republic against a government plan to move public broadcasting from licence fees onto the state budget. Michal Kubal, Czech Television's chief news editor, called it unprecedented in the history of the country's public service media. The bill, from the government of billionaire prime minister Andrej Babiš, would give the broadcasters about 15 percent less money than they receive today.

The fight is over how the money arrives. Licence fees reach the broadcasters without any annual decision by politicians; state-budget appropriations pass through the chamber that votes on everything else — and that chamber is dominated by Babiš's three-party nationalist coalition, which pushed the bill through its first of three readings in a controversial overnight session last month. Babiš said on Monday that "nobody wants to control public media, let alone nationalise them" and that "none of what the people are protesting against... is true". His government argues that the broadcasters must cut costs and that the plan touches neither editorial independence nor programme content.

The plan had already drawn street protests in Prague last month. On Tuesday it drew the broadcasters themselves. The European Federation of Journalists and Reporters Without Borders, in a joint statement with other press groups, said the funding model "opens the door to political pressure and threatens editorial independence"; their precedents sit next door, in Slovakia's public media under prime minister Robert Fico and in Hungary before Viktor Orbán was removed from power in April. The strike is backed by unions, university deans, churches, artists and athletes, and thousands of employees marched from the media headquarters to a central Prague square, joined by students — many wearing triangular paper hats copied from a character in Czech Television's own animation.

The strike is the broadcasters' opening move, and it lands first on the audience. For the day, the licence-fee payers — individuals, households and businesses — got archived programmes and shortened news bulletins. Czech Television ran an announcement telling viewers it was "doing everything we can" to keep the public service running at full scope and quality — a message broadcast, on Tuesday, between the reruns.