SEPTEMBER 2023

Statement of the Association of Commercial Television on the “Big Media Amendment” introduced by Minister of Culture Baxa in September 2023

At a press conference on 5 September 2023, Culture Minister Martin Baxa together with representatives of the five-coalition government presented the Amendment to the Act on Czech Television and Czech Radio and the Act on Radio and Television Fees.

During the press conference, it was repeatedly stated that the Ministry is in regular contact with representatives of broadcasters, that the draft amendment has been discussed with them, and that during its preparation, emphasis was placed on avoiding distortion of the media market.

Members of Asociace komerčních televizí, z.s. (AKTV), and the Nova, Prima and Óčko TV groups have in recent days familiarised themselves with the announcement of the Minister of Culture and the content of the draft amendment. It is with great disappointment that we have to state that we were not informed about the text of the proposed amendment at all, let alone consulted on it.

It is true that we have been in intensive contact with representatives of the Ministry of Culture this year as we participated in the advisory group on the transformation of the State Cinematography Fund and the related amendment to the Audiovisual Act. Therefore, we were all the more surprised by the Minister’s words that the intended significant increase in funding for Česká televize (Czech Television) should be seen as a topic related to the transformation of the Fund. During the several months of work of the advisory group, not a single mention was made of any connection between this topic and the financing of public service media. In fact, there is no such substantive link, nor does it make sense.

The submitted draft Amendment to the Act on Czech Television and Czech Radio and the Act on Radio and Television Fees primarily aims to increase revenues from licence fees by increasing the fees and expanding the number of payers while the source of Czech Television’s funding from advertising, sponsorship and other commercial communication is maintained in full. In the current economic situation, we consider it to be completely wrong to start dealing with an increase in fee funding without defining and knowing exactly what the increased funds in Czech Television’s budget are needed for and in what amount. We strongly prefer discussing the role of the public service media and the content of the public service as the first step in the process. Only then will it be possible to determine the cost of the public service and set a budget to fulfil the role effectively. Only if this discussion reveals that the current budget is insufficient, does it make sense to have an expert debate on how to make up for missing funds in the budget.

Moreover, the additional revenues from the collection of licence fees as anticipated by the current draft amendment significantly exceed all the amounts previously disclosed by Czech Television’s CEO, Petr Dvořák, in connection with the need to rehabilitate Czech Television’s budget. This fact raises considerable doubts as to what the increased funds are to be used for.

The submitted draft amendment to the Act on Czech Television and Czech Radio and the Act on Radio and Television Fees is thus completely inappropriate, has not been discussed with the parties concerned, and would fundamentally undermine the stability of the media sector. We therefore categorically disagree with the proposed amendment and request that it be withdrawn from the legislative process and thoroughly revised.

We are ready and willing to provide full cooperation and our expert insight into the functioning of the media environment in the Czech Republic so that the impact and potential risks to the stability of the market can be properly assessed when such major interventions are made. The current proposal would undoubtedly have a destructive effect on the balance of the Czech media environment, media pluralism and, last but not least, would very likely constitute an illegitimate interference in competition. The documents of the Ministry of Culture submitted to the inter-ministerial comment procedure, including the impact study, completely omit this aspect.

The last important point to consider is the situation in which the government is coming up with this proposal. High inflation and rising prices make households, businesses and the state tighten their belts. We thus consider it very unfortunate to pull additional hundreds of millions of crowns out of the family budgets of virtually all Czech households without any expert discussion.