Czech TV and radio staff strike as thousands rally against funding overhaul

Thousands of people flooded the streets of Prague and other Czech cities on Tuesday, joining public television and radio workers who walked off the job for a day to fight a government plan to gut their funding. Students and artists marched alongside media staff, and the strike forced broadcast curbs across the country.

The walkout targeted a bill that would scrap the 205-crown ($9.43) monthly household broadcasting fee and shift financing onto the state budget instead. Critics say that severs the link between broadcasters and the viewers who pay for them, opening funding decisions to political pressure — a claim the government rejects.

The fight lands squarely on Prime Minister Andrej Babis, the billionaire whose coalition is backed by the far-right Freedom and Direct Democracy (SPD) and the eurosceptic Motorists parties. Babis has repeatedly accused private and public media of bias, and on Monday insisted the overhaul simply fulfills a promise to ease the public's financial burden. "Nobody wants to take over the public media or bring them under state control," he said, adding that the bill could still be adjusted in further debate.

The timing set tempers off. Government parties dropped the bill on a Friday last month, which critics say curbed debate and forced a preliminary vote before dawn the following Saturday. It cleared that vote and now faces more parliamentary debate.

The intensity isn't random: a 2025 Reuters Institute survey found the Czech broadcasters among the country's most followed and most trusted news sources. Under the proposal, a 15% financing cut would shrink public television's nominal budget back to 2008 levels and radio's to 2005 levels. Workers have called those cuts unbearable, and opposition parties have drawn parallels to the media landscape Viktor Orban built in Hungary during his 16 years in office.

Inside Czech Television, the 24-hour news channel aired a darkened newsroom with moderators dressed in black, reading from a script — an unusual sight. Marchers walked from the broadcaster's headquarters to Wenceslas Square, where the crowd swelled. "I want the media to continue to be free," said Alena Jechova, a 23-year-old student. Reporter Jan Molacek, a member of the strike committee, said the proposal would hand the coalition "tools to politically influence the content of both public media" — though he allowed that a funding change isn't impossible if it rests on thorough debate and legal safeguards against meddling.