Czech public media workers strike over funding overhaul
Staff at Czech Television and Czech Radio held a one-day warning strike against a government plan to replace licence fees with direct state budget funding.
By Lucas Ferreira · Science & Environment Writer
3 min read
Employees at the Czech Republic’s public broadcasters staged a one-day warning strike on Monday over a government plan they say could put Czech Television and Czech Radio under political pressure. The dispute matters because the proposed funding shift would replace licence fees with money drawn directly from the state budget, a model critics say could weaken editorial independence.
The strike was centered on Czech Television’s headquarters in Prague, according to AFP and The Associated Press. It followed a large public demonstration at the same location on Sunday in support of public media.
Staff, civil society groups and other critics accuse Prime Minister Andrej Babis’s government of trying to gain leverage over the broadcasters, AFP and AP reported. The cabinet approved the funding change last week, moving ahead with a proposal Babis had promised before taking office in December.
Under the plan, Czech Television and Czech Radio would be financed through the state budget instead of the licence fee system. AFP and AP reported that the broadcasters’ funding would also be reduced to 2008 levels, after the previous government last year raised Czech Television’s funding for the first time in 17 years.
Babis has said the change would be fairer for poorer households and would push the broadcasters to operate more efficiently, according to AFP and AP. He has also denied that his government intends to interfere with the outlets’ independence.
Critics say the arrangement would give the government new power over public broadcasters’ work. AFP and AP reported that opponents have compared the plan with moves against public media in Hungary and Slovakia in recent years.
Reporters Without Borders and other media observers have criticized the proposal and warned about its possible impact on the broadcasters, according to AFP and AP. Public media supporters have framed the fight as a test of whether the outlets can keep operating at arm’s length from the government.
Monday’s action affected programming as some broadcasts began one minute late, with a countdown clock and an explanatory message on screen, AFP and AP reported. Thousands of journalists and other public media employees joined the strike.
Hundreds of Czech Television staff gathered outside the company’s headquarters in a southern suburb of Prague. At Czech Radio, employees formed a human chain around the broadcaster’s building in the city center.
Many demonstrators wore black and held signs reading “We are not state media” and “Independence is no expenditure,” according to AFP and AP. The slogans reflected the central argument made by staff: that public funding should not turn the broadcasters into government-controlled outlets.
The broadcasters could receive about 15 percent less money next year under the proposal, AFP and AP reported. The directors of Czech Radio and Czech Television have said such a cut would force them to dismiss hundreds of employees and cancel programmes.
Babis’s three-party government includes far-right and radical-right figures, according to AFP and AP. Babis and other senior government members have long accused the public broadcasters of bias and a liberal outlook, while denying that the funding overhaul is meant to curb their independence.
The Czech Republic has faced public media independence battles before. AFP and AP reported that in 2000, journalists occupied Czech Television studios and made their own broadcasts during a political control dispute, while large street protests helped force the government then to retreat and strengthen protections for the broadcaster.
This story draws on original reporting from Al Jazeera.