Thousands of staff at Czech public broadcasters strike over funding plans

Employees of Czech Radio and Czech Television announce the one-day strike at a press conference last week in Prague. Photograph: Martin Divíšek/EPA View image in fullscreen Employees of Czech Radio and Czech Television announce the one-day strike at a press conference last week in Prague. Photograph: Martin Divíšek/EPA Thousands of staff at Czech public broadcasters strike over funding plans Industrial action is biggest escalation yet in months-long dispute with populist government of Andrej Babiš Thousands of public service media employees in Czechia are holding a 24-hour strike after the government of the billionaire prime minister, Andrej Babiš, pushed ahead with controversial plans to change the way the country’s public broadcasters are funded. Monday’s industrial action by staff at Czech Television and Czech Radio marks the biggest escalation yet in a months-long confrontation between the broadcasters and Babiš’s populist administration . “The reforms have been prepared without consultation and without guarantees for the independence of public service media,” said Pavla Kubálková, a member of Czech Television’s strike committee. “A large part of society remembers what the news looked like when politicians chose the content before 1989. We don’t want to go back there.” The legislation, approved by the cabinet last week, would scrap the licence fee system and finance Czech Television and Czech Radio through an annual state-budget allocation. According to the broadcasters, the changes would in effect return funding to 2008 levels, cutting about £14.3m from Czech Radio’s annual budget and £35.8m from Czech Television’s, despite the nearly two decades of inflation since then. Executives say the reductions would force hundreds of job losses and substantial cuts to programming. But the dispute is not just about money. Kubálková said it had evolved into a broader fight over the future independence of public service media amid concerns that direct funding from the state would expose broadcasters to political pressure. “What matters most to us is preserving independence and the direct relationship between Czech Television and its viewers,” she said. “The employees of both broadcasters are ready to defend their service to citizens, and we are determined to continue with even more vigorous protests,” she added. “We will do everything we can to defend public service media in their current form.” Her concerns were reinforced last week when Josef Nerušil, an MP for the far-right Freedom and Direct Democracy (SPD) party, which is part of the governing coalition, appeared to suggest that changes to funding should eventually lead to greater scrutiny of what public broadcasters air. “The point is to change the funding,” Nerušil told Czech Radio. “But if we’re talking about what public service media should broadcast, then of course, in a further step, we want to get to a broader discussion.” He added that the aim was “to control not only the financial side but