Organizers estimated that 350,000 to 450,000 people attended Sunday's Prague rally against a Czech plan to shift public broadcaster funding to the state, a move critics fear could give the government more influence.
The proposal would replace household broadcasting fees with state-budget financing for Czech Television and Czech Radio. The government says the new arrangement would preserve editorial independence while requiring the broadcasters to reduce costs. Prime Minister Andrej Babis said last week his government did not want to control or nationalize public media.
The proposal could reduce the two broadcasters’ budgets by about 15%, Deutsche Welle reported. Czech lawmakers gave the funding shift preliminary backing in an earlier vote, Reuters reported.
Critics and demonstrators say routing public media through the state budget risks giving the governing coalition more influence over broadcasters. The debate puts editorial independence at issue as the government changes how public media is funded.
