The Coalition Council has agreed to abolish licence fees for public Czech Television and Czech Radio, and adjusted the timetable for changes to their funding, according to parliamentary speaker and SPD leader Tomio Okamura.
He was speaking to the media earlier today after the meeting of the leaders of ANO, SPD, and the Motorists.
The opposition does not agree with the abolition of the fees, warning of a threat to the independence of public media.
“We have made progress in this respect, there is a specific assignment, and it is being worked on,” Okamura said. “We definitely want to abolish license fees because it is embedded in our government’s policy statement, and we promised it to voters. The form of financing is also clear to us, but I will leave that up to how we will work out the specific wording of the law.”
According to earlier information, the coalition parties agreed that Czech Television and Radio fees will be replaced by public funding from the state budget starting in 2027. During the transition period, the ruling parties considered fee relief for certain groups of the population, such as pensioners.
President Petr Pavel told journalists at the Vatican today that this matter is the prerogative of the government. However, he said he expects the government to explain how Czech Television and Czech Radio will be financed in the future, including whether it will be the same level of funding as now, how it will be adjusted, what sources it will be funded from, and how it will be ensured that public media remain as independent as possible.
“We don’t have [information about] these details yet, so it’s probably premature to talk about it. I hope it will be part of the debate on the financing of public media,” he added.
At a press conference after the cabinet meeting, Babis said that coalition representatives had asked Okamura to include a Senate proposal in the Chamber of Deputies’ agenda for the Supreme Audit Office (NKU) to be empowered to check Czech Television and Czech Radio’s management.
“We expect [this point of] the policy statement to be implemented by law from 1 January 2027,” Babis told reporters. He added that the Czech Republic would become the 18th country in the European Union to finance public media from the state budget.
He said they were also considering establishing a state fund where citizens could voluntarily contribute to Czech Television and Czech Radio.
After the previous cabinet pushed through an increase in the licence fee last year, from 135 crowns to 150 per month, CT expects revenues of CZK 6.73 billion this year, which is CZK 580 million (9%) more than last year. Czech Television’s total budget is CZK 8.5 billion.
Czech Radio expects an increase in fee income of CZK 409 million, to approximately CZK 2.48 billion this year. Its total budget is CZK 2.74 billion. Last year, the Czech Radio fee was raised by 10 crowns, to 55 crowns per month.
