THOUSANDS of people have taken to the streets of Czechia to protest government plans to fund the country's public broadcasters.
Over the last two weeks, thousands of people have taken to Republic Square in Prague to protest direct government financing of Czech Television (ČT) and Czech Radio (ČRo).
Hundreds more media workers are taking part in strikes, and student demonstrations were held across the country in Pardubice, Olomouc, Zlín, Plzeň, Brno, and Ostrava.
According to DW, hundreds of thousands are also expected to rally on Sunday.
Their concern? Controversial legislation, fast-tracked through parliament by the right-populist coalition headed by prime minister Andrej Babiš. It was approved at 4.34am on October 24 after what critics described as a "very limited debate".
Until now, ČT and ČRo have received the vast majority of their funding through compulsory broadcasting licence fees, similar to the UK's BBC licence fee.
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Marína Urbániková, specialist in media policy, explained: "The Czech government is planning to abolish the licence fees that currently provide around 90% of the budgets of Czech Television and Czech Radio and replace them with funding from the state budget."
But instead of like-for-like funding, Urbániková says this proposal will see cuts of approximately 15–20% to both broadcasters' budgets, "without providing a convincing justification for such reductions".
She added the central concern is an "increased political leverage" that would come with the change in funding.
The government says the change would save households money, but Urbániková said the public service broadcaster enjoyed a funding system that "worked well".
She continued: "This is taking place against a backdrop of repeated political attacks on public service media, with coalition politicians questioning their impartiality, public value and use of public funds, while also targeting individual journalists."
According to Czech Radio presenter Lukáš Matoška, public TV and radio have long enjoyed strong public trust compared to much of post-communist Europe, having maintained their independence from the state.
He said: "The way we're funded right now guarantees us a reasonable amount of independence; being funded by licence fees, we avoid the state budget, so politicians can't really interfere in our work.
He says, for example, the government "couldn't tell us you should cover less politics."
"The change that this government is proposing, somehow, maybe a future government consisting of different parties could blackmail the management of Czech TV or Czech Radio, telling them you should broadcast shows that are less critical of our policies.
"Last week people were showing up at the protests in a couple of cities around the Czech Republic. This Sunday, there will be a big demo in Prague because of what's happening, the public response has been quite huge so far, bigger than I expected," he added.
Matoška says the public reaction is shaped by a history of state-controlled narratives which were established during the period of communist Czechoslovakia.
"Many people remember how Czech TV and Radio used to be broadcast under a communist regime; it was under 100% state control. Not only Czechs, but Slovaks, Hungarians, and Poles, we have experience with state media and broadcasting in favour of the government.
"Czech TV and Radio are trusted by a significant majority of the population, the most trusted media in different surveys, so we're in a slightly better position to defend ourselves than our colleagues, say, in Slovakia were.
"It's very surprising to see so many of our colleagues striking; and it doesn't guarantee that we're going to win this, but it tells us that we could win it, that is certainly not lost," he said.
Dr Alice Němcová Tejkalová, professor of journalism at Charles University in Prague, raised concerns about the government's "real intentions" over the proposed changes.
She said: "Since some MPs from the government parties and political movements have repeatedly made offensive remarks about the public service media, it is hard to believe that their true intention is not to show the independent media their place.
"That is why the public debate is currently so heated, and people want to defend the public service media," she said.
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Czechia was criticised earlier this year when Reporters Without Borders found that the country was failing to adequately apply the European Media Freedom Act.
Following the recent vote, the European Broadcasting Union said they were "deeply concerned" by the move and said the defunding would threaten the public service's ability to "maintain high-quality journalism".
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