Czech Television (ČT)

Czech Television (Česká televize) is the Czech Republic’s public television broadcaster. It was established on 1 January 1992 under Act No. 483/1991 Coll. on Czech Television, succeeding Československá televize, the state broadcaster that operated from 1953 to 1992. It operates six television channels: the generalist ČT1 and ČT2, the 24-hour news service ČT24, ČT sport, the children’s channel ČT 😀 and the cultural channel ČT art. ČT3, launched in March 2020 principally for older audiences, ceased broadcasting on 31 December 2022 on cost grounds. Director General Hynek Chudárek has indicated that its restoration remains a longer-term ambition, subject to the broadcaster’s financial position.

Media assets

Television: ČT1, ČT2, ČT24, ČT sport, ČT 😀 and ČT art.

Ownership and governance

ČT is a public-law institution established under Act No. 483/1991 Coll., institutionally separate from the state and subject to public oversight rather than government ownership.

Its governing body is the Council of Czech Television, which has 18 members. Since Act No. 225/2023 Coll., in force from 1 October 2023, 12 are elected and recalled by the Chamber of Deputies and six by the Senate. Members serve six-year terms, may be re-elected, and a seat vacated early is filled for the remainder of that term. Candidates are proposed by legal persons that have existed for at least ten years and represent cultural, regional, social, trade-union, employer, religious, educational, scientific, environmental or national-minority interests. Council membership is incompatible with a long list of political and public offices, with office in a party or movement, with media business interests and with any other paid position at ČT. The Council elects a chair and two vice-chairs from among its members, one of those three posts reserved for a member elected by the Senate.

The Council appoints and may dismiss the Director General. A Supervisory Commission of five members, elected by the Council for renewable three-year terms, monitors financial management, reports to the Council quarterly and submits an annual financial analysis.

Jan Souček was elected Director General by the Council on 7 June 2023, in a third round with eleven votes and took office on 1 October for a six-year term. The Council dismissed him on 6 May 2025 with effect from the following day, by 15 votes to two among its 17 sitting members in a secret ballot in which 12 votes were required. It said he had repeatedly breached the Czech Television Act, citing inappropriate communication with the public, the cancellation of current-affairs programmes, threats to close several channels if the licence fee were not raised, failure to inform the Council of pressure placed on him, excessive redaction of contracts and non-standard severance payments.

Souček challenged the dismissal in court. On 11 May 2026 a Prague court rejected his claim for a declaration that the removal was invalid, reasoning that he had subsequently ended his employment by agreement and therefore lacked sufficient legal interest in a purely declaratory ruling. He did not appeal and that ruling became final. On 23 September 2026 the Prague City Court ruled on his separate claim for a 2024 management bonus, upholding the Prague 4 District Court and dismissing his claim for about CZK 1.3 million; he said he would consider a further appeal to the Supreme Court.

Hynek Chudárek, previously ČT’s executive director of commerce, was elected Director General on 25 June 2025 and took office on 1 July for a six-year term. His rival in the final stage of the selection, Milan Fridrich, became statutory deputy and head of the programme division. Chudárek reduced the top-management structure from nineteen posts to nine and has opposed both a merger with Czech Radio and replacement of the licence fee by direct state-budget funding.

On 5 June 2026 the Chamber of Deputies elected six Council members to seats whose previous terms had expired. Martin Chalupský received 132 votes; Lucie Plíšková and Luboš Xaver Veselý 93 each; Stanislav Berkovec 92; and Petr Brozda and Jiří Šlégr 91 each, with 86 votes required. Chalupský was the only successful candidate supported by opposition deputies as well as the governing coalition. The other five were elected exclusively with votes from ANO, SPD and the Motorists. Berkovec is a former ANO deputy and presenter.

Two outgoing councillors who sought re-election, Pavel Matocha and Roman Bradáč, were not returned after former ČT journalist Marek Wollner published an audio recording in which voices resembling theirs appeared to discuss money linked to a vote. Both denied the authenticity of the recording and filed criminal complaints. Competing analyses commissioned by political actors reached different conclusions, and no adjudicated finding on the recording’s authenticity had been reached at this update.

Source of funding and budget

ČT is financed primarily through the television licence fee, supplemented by limited advertising, sponsorship and other commercial revenue.

Act No. 119/2025 Coll., the so-called velká mediální novela, took effect on 1 May 2025. It increased the monthly television fee from CZK 135 to CZK 150, the first rise since 2008, and expanded liability to households possessing devices capable of receiving broadcasts through the internet as well as conventional television receivers. A household pays only once regardless of the number of devices.

Businesses moved from receiver-based charging to a system based on full-time-equivalent employment. Firms with up to 24 employees are exempt, with progressively larger multiples of the combined television and radio fee applying above that threshold. The reform also capped sponsorship on ČT, directed part of that income to the State Culture Fund and introduced automatic fee indexation once cumulative inflation passes the statutory threshold.

ČT’s published financial indicators show the following.

The higher fee broadened the payer base more rapidly than ČT had budgeted. In 2025 it added approximately 162,000 households, compared with about 70,000 expected, and television-fee revenue finished roughly CZK 188 million above budget. Average staffing fell to about 2,878 employees.

The Council approved a balanced CZK 8.5 billion budget for 2026 on 10 December 2025. Television-fee income was budgeted at CZK 6.73 billion, approximately 79.2 per cent of total revenue and around CZK 580 million above the previous year’s plan.

The funding model is now politically contested. On 15 June 2026 the government approved a bill abolishing the television and radio fees and replacing them with annual state-budget financing. The proposal provides CZK 5.74 billion annually for ČT and CZK 2.065 billion for Czech Radio, with indexation only after cumulative inflation reaches the specified threshold. For ČT, the proposed allocation is about CZK 1 billion below its 2026 television-fee revenue plan.

The government submitted the bill to the Chamber of Deputies on 19 June as parliamentary print 231. The Organisational Committee recommended it for consideration on 24 June, but as of 8 October 2026 it had not received its first reading. It was listed for the parliamentary session beginning 13 October.

Opposition parties have pledged to obstruct the reform and have raised the possibility of constitutional litigation. The government initially sought implementation from January 2027, but ministers acknowledged during the summer that this timetable was unlikely. By early October, reporting indicated that implementation could slip to 2028. The Chamber debate was deferred until after the municipal and Senate elections, scheduled for 9 and 10 October 2026 with a Senate second round on 16 and 17 October.

A separate proposal by the ANO deputy Patrik Nacher would broaden exemptions from the existing licence fee, including for households with a resident over 75 and for firms with up to 50 employees. The cabinet gave that proposal a favourable opinion in June while maintaining that the government’s own abolition bill remained its preferred approach.

The funding dispute has produced organised resistance inside the public broadcasters. Staff at ČT and Czech Radio staged a one-day strike on 22 June 2026. The staff initiative organising the protest said about 3,500 of roughly 4,250 employees across the two organisations had signed its petition, including about 2,300 at ČT. Programmes were marked by symbolic delays and presenters wore black.

ČT has also begun planning for tighter finances independently of whether the government’s funding bill passes. In August Chudárek presented a 2027 budget scenario CZK 350 million below the broadcaster’s previously approved long-term plan. In September he said ČT expected to reduce its workforce by almost 350 posts, around 12 per cent, between 2026 and 2030.

ČT has stressed that the CZK 350 million saving scenario and planned changes in programme production are separate measures, describing them as two independent areas and saying the saving would be built from deferred investment and lower operating and wage costs. The production limit for 2027, a task of about CZK 2.2 billion, derives from the long-term programme plans the Council approved in 2025. ČT’s own press release of 26 August had said the saving would come partly from limiting programme production. Other planned operational changes include reductions in some regional and overnight output. On 6 October ČT announced that financial pressures meant it would neither participate in nor broadcast the 2027 Eurovision Song Contest.

Editorial independence

No evidence of sustained government direction of Czech Television’s editorial output was established for this review.

Editorial operations are governed by the Czech Television Code, adopted under the Czech Television Act and binding on employees. ČT also introduced new internal Standards from 1 February 2025 covering professional conduct, accountability and whistleblowing.

The Standards provide for an Ombudsman outside the ordinary editorial-management chain who receives complaints and whistleblowing reports and is intended to protect reporting employees. This mechanism should not, however, be treated as equivalent to a newsroom council elected independently by journalists.

ČT also has a five-member Ethics Panel, an advisory body to the Director General. Members are appointed by the Director General with their consent and after agreement with the Council. The Panel considers questions of professional ethics placed before it under its statute and issues advisory resolutions.

A published complaints system allows viewers to submit complaints through ČT and, subsequently, to the Council. Matters involving potentially serious breaches of the law or the Code may be considered directly by the Council.

Recent external concern has centred primarily on governance and funding rather than demonstrated editorial intervention. In November 2025 Reporters Without Borders and the Czech Syndicate of Journalists warned that the incoming coalition’s programme could threaten public-media independence, particularly through abolition of the licence fee and possible structural changes to ČT and Czech Radio. In March 2026 the European Broadcasting Union, the European Federation of Journalists and other media organisations likewise urged the government to retain robust institutional and editorial safeguards and provide predictable financing consistent with the European Media Freedom Act.

Transparency International Czech Republic’s public-institution independence index gives ČT an overall score of 55 per cent, including 71 per cent for legal anchoring, 73 per cent for the position and powers of its governing body, 33 per cent for leadership selection and 40 per cent for budget and funding. That assessment was last revised in July 2025 and therefore predates the current Director General and the 2026 funding proposal.

Classification rationale

Czech Television remains classified Independent Public (IP), provisionally.

Its present institutional model satisfies the core characteristics of that category. ČT is established as a public-law broadcaster rather than a government-owned company. Its main income is a statutory licence fee paid directly by households and businesses rather than an annual discretionary government appropriation. Its eighteen-member Council is divided between the two chambers of Parliament, with six-year terms and candidates originating in civil-society nominations. The Czech Television Code, the Ethics Panel and the published complaints mechanism provide additional accountability structures.

No evidence of a sustained editorial line imposed or approved by the government was found for this review.

Two developments nevertheless justify provisional status.

First, the governing ANO, SPD and Motorists coalition elected five of the six Chamber-appointed Council members chosen in June 2026 without opposition votes. This does not establish editorial control, but it increases the relevance of future Council decisions because the Council appoints and may dismiss the Director General.

Second, the government has introduced legislation that would abolish the licence fee and replace it with annual state-budget financing at a level below ČT’s current fee income. The proposal remained before the Chamber without a first reading on 8 October 2026. Its enactment would remove one of the principal structural grounds for the present Independent Public classification and would require a fresh assessment of ČT’s funding independence, including the final statutory safeguards, the indexation mechanism and the degree of political discretion over future allocations.

For now the existing licence-fee system remains legally in force and the evidence reviewed does not establish government control over ČT’s editorial output. The IP classification therefore remains appropriate, but provisional pending the outcome of the funding legislation and subsequent Council practice.

October 2026