Despite the cold and rainy weather that descended over the Czech capital, thousands of protesters filled Prague’s Old Town Square on Sunday afternoon, heeding the call of the Million Moments for Democracy movement with banners reading “Resign!”, “Hands off public media!”, “Shame!”, “We’ve had enough!”, and more colourful and explicit drawings and captions.
Other smaller demonstrations took place throughout the weekend across Czechia, including Brno, Liberec and Ceske Budejovice, hastily organised protests that testified to a sudden mood shift in society as fears of a government media grab intensify.
One of the governing coalition’s top campaign promises, the long-debated yet long-delayed reform to abolish license fees and fund both Czech TV (CT) and Czech Radio (CRo) directly from the state budget, appeared to have stalled in recent months.
But on Friday, the ruling three-party coalition of ANO, the ultraconservative Motorists for Themselves and the far-right Freedom and Direct Democracy (SPD) party abruptly pushed through a priority reading of the bill.
This led to a swift and immediate response from citizens. Hundreds of protesters gathered on Malostranske Square in central Prague, and dozens were even blocked by the police from entering the lower house of parliament later that evening.
After a fast-track procedure that limited speaking time and set a fixed voting deadline, government MPs eventually approved the draft at around 04:30 in the early hours of Saturday morning, sending the bill to a second reading following hours of heated debate that saw personal attacks and vulgarities fly from both sides of the aisle.
According to the proposal, CT should receive an annual 5.7 billion crowns (234 million euros) from the state budget in 2027 (a billion crowns less than its 2026 license fee revenues), while CRo should also see its funding cut by 400 million crowns to a little over 2 billion crowns.
No ‘nationalisation’?
Repeating the mantra pushed for the past year, government officials dismissed any concerns about the independence or the future of the public service broadcasters. “I reject the idea that changing the financing of public media is an attack on democracy or the end of the independence of public media,” insisted Culture Minister Oto Klempir, arguing that many other European countries fund their public broadcasters in a similar way.
A long-time critic of the public service media’s coverage and management, Prime Minister Andrej Babis accused the opposition of “lying, inciting hatred and dividing society”, while drawing a feeble comparison with protesters’ attempt to enter the Chamber of Deputies in Prague last Friday with the Capitol riots in Washington DC in January 2021.
He did, however, try to strike a reassuring tone as well. “Their funding will be guaranteed by law as a mandatory expenditure and linked to inflation,” he vowed. “No government will be able to arbitrarily cut [funding] based on whether it likes or dislikes a broadcast.”
This, however, did little to assuage widespread concerns that the government’s reform could put the two public service broadcasters under greater political control.
Warning that the reform threatens their editorial independence, undermines the stability of their funding and could lead to the nationalisation of both entities, staffers at CT and CRo have declared a day-long strike for November 3. “We ask everyone who is not indifferent to the fate of CT and CRo to make their position known publicly and loudly,” stated the Verejnopravne initiative, which is backed by about 3,200 of the 4,200 employees at the two broadcasters.
Addressing both the content of the bill and the fast-track legislative push, criticism has come from all corners, including the Czech Journalists’ Syndicate, the European Broadcasting Union, the European Federation of Journalists, Reporters Without Borders, over a dozen other domestic and international media freedom groups, as well as President Petr Pavel – whose signature would be needed for the bill to come into force.
“I repeat that the media must have clear guarantees of independence in every respect, both in terms of content and funding,” Pavel said, additionally calling on politicians from both sides of the aisle to take it down a notch and work to deescalate tensions.
Experts also weighed in on the issue. “The way the rules of procedure [in the lower house of parliament] were handled in this case bears the features of a power grab, in which we can see inspiration from the rhetoric and tactics of leaders like Donald Trump and Viktor Orban,” argued political scientist Eva Klusova from the Czech Academy of Sciences.
Hypothesising that the reform could be a way for the government to cover up their earlier setback at this month’s recent municipal and senatorial elections, media expert Martina Urbanikova highlighted that the funding for public service media isn’t included in the 2027 state budget, and that the legislative agenda made it uncertain the reform could take effect from January.
But in the wake of Sunday’s street protests, Prime Minister Babis vowed not to back down, adding on Monday that specific provisions were still under consideration, including the option to allow for voluntary license fee payments.
Meanwhile, Million Moments for Democracy called for another mass demonstration, set to take place on Prague’s Letna plain on November 15, two days before commemorations marking the start of the 1989 Velvet Revolution.