Hundreds of thousands rally in Prague against public media funding overhaul

Hundreds of thousands of people filled Prague's Letna park on Sunday to oppose a government plan to end the licence fee and pay for Czech Television and Czech Radio out of the state budget, a change critics say would leave public broadcasting dependent on politicians.

The organising group Million Moments for Democracy put the crowd at between 350,000 and 450,000, its head Mikulas Minar said. Czech Radio described it as the largest protest since the Czech Republic became independent in 1993. Households now pay 205 crowns ($9.44) a month for the two broadcasters. The government says the switch is needed so they can cut costs, and that it will not affect editorial independence or what they broadcast.

The coalition of Prime Minister Andrej Babis, in office since December 2025, joins his ANO party with the far-right SPD and the Eurosceptic Motorists. Parliament took the bill through its first reading late last month in an overnight vote, at 4:36, a time demonstrators have turned into a slogan. Two more readings are needed before it becomes law.

Culture Minister Oto Klempir introduced the proposal in April. It would cut the two broadcasters' budgets by around 15%. Staff at Czech TV and Czech Radio held a one-day strike on 3 November, and students and others rallied in several cities.

"Political attacks against private and public media have become one of the hallmarks of Andrej Babis' premiership," Pavol Szalai, head of the Prague bureau of Reporters Without Borders, said in June. The European Broadcasting Union, the European Federation of Journalists, Reporters Without Borders and the International Press Institute have all criticised the bill, drawing comparisons with public media under Hungary's former leader Viktor Orban and Slovakia's Prime Minister Robert Fico.

Babis said last week that "nobody wants to control public media, let alone nationalise them" and that "none of what the people are protesting against... is true".

Many in the crowd wore folded paper hats shaped like Vecernicek, the animated character who has introduced Czech Television's nightly bedtime stories for decades. "We need to keep media independent. The government is taking steps to control them, cut their funding and affect what they broadcast," computer programmer Jan Snasel told AFP.

Minar presented a petition calling on the government to withdraw the bill and also demanding the dismissal of parliament speaker Tomio Okamura, the SPD chairman, whom he accused of endangering national security through his "pro-Russian" party. Lucie Fajfrova, a Prague teacher and researcher, said she had come out for "free media, Czech TV, Czech Radio, but also culture, environment protection".

Babis's ANO still polls around 30%. Trust in the media in the Czech Republic stands at 30 to 33%, according to the Reuters Institute's Digital News Report 2026, which found that public service broadcasters remain the country's most trusted media brands.