Czech Public Media Strike: Thousands Rally as Babiš Plan Would Cut TV and Radio Funding 15%

Czech public media workers staged an unprecedented strike on Tuesday, Nov. 3, and thousands of people rallied across the country against Prime Minister Andrej Babiš’s plan to scrap television and radio licence fees and fund Czech Television and Czech Radio from the state budget, at about 15% less money than they get now, Euronews reported.

Both broadcasters cut back to archive programs and short news bulletins. Michal Kubal, chief news editor at Czech Television, called the strike unprecedented in the history of Czech public service media. Staff marched from their headquarters to central Prague, where students and other protesters joined them.

What the Czech public media bill does

The bill, drafted by the Culture Ministry under Oto Klempíř of the Motorists party, gives each broadcaster a fixed annual sum: 5.74 billion koruna for Czech Television and 2.07 billion for Czech Radio, according to a breakdown by Novinky. Payments would arrive monthly. The sum could rise by 10% only after cumulative inflation since the last increase tops 10%. Media analyst Filip Rožánek told Novinky that design is “a trap,” because it lets the real value fall over time.

Today, households owning a device that can receive the broadcasts pay 150 koruna a month for television and 55 for radio, up from 135 and 50 before May 1, 2025. Fees were frozen from 2008 until last year. By a Boston Report calculation, the two current fees total 2,460 koruna a year per household. The bill sets no new guarantees of editorial independence, Novinky noted.

By the numbers: how deep the cut goes

The government says its figures are based on 2025 fee levels. Measured against the budgets the broadcasters had planned for next year, about 7 billion koruna for Czech Television and 2.7 billion for Czech Radio, the cut is deeper: by our calculation, about 18% for television and 23% for radio, or roughly 1.9 billion koruna combined. Czech Television has said its crisis budget can save no more than 350 million koruna next year, and its director general, Hynek Chudárek, warned the planned cut would threaten its ability to fulfill its legal mandate.

Czech Radio Director General René Zavoral said more than 75% of employees and collaborators joined the strike and warned of a 15% to 20% budget loss, with cuts to regional broadcasting, original production and investigative journalism, Radio Prague International reported. He also accused Babiš of lying when the prime minister said management refused to negotiate.

The political fight

The coalition rushed the bill through its first reading in an overnight session, with the vote at 4:36 a.m. on Oct. 24. Babiš said that “nobody wants to control public media, let alone nationalise them,” and he has since floated a model in which the money would not come directly from the budget but would be fixed and predictable. Chamber Speaker Tomio Okamura of the SPD said he had not noticed the strike because he has not watched Czech Television “for about fifteen years,” and said his party would oppose any new tax to fund the broadcasters.

Critics see a regional pattern. A joint statement from the European Federation of Journalists, Reporters Without Borders and other groups said the model “opens the door to political pressure and threatens editorial independence.” Opponents compare it with changes to public media in Slovakia under Robert Fico and in Hungary under Viktor Orbán, Euronews reported. Labor unions, university deans, churches, artists and athletes have backed the strike, Euronews reported.

What to watch

The bill still faces a second and third reading in the lower house and a Senate vote, and the coalition has the votes to pass it. Organizers have called another major protest for Nov. 15 on Prague’s Letná Plain. The dispute joins a wave of street mobilization, from France’s weekend cost-of-living marches to rallies tracked in our Europe protest tracker, and Czech Television laid out the strike plans in its own ČT24 report. For more international news, follow our world coverage.

Sources

• Euronews: Thousands join Czech protest against public media financing plan
• Radio Prague International: Battle over Czech public television and radio funding
• Novinky: What changes under the public media financing law (Czech)
• ČT24: Czech TV and Czech Radio to strike on Nov. 3 (Czech)