Ostrava actors protest plan to scrap Czech TV and radio fees

The drama company of the National Moravian-Silesian Theatre (NDM) in Ostrava interrupted its curtain call after a premiere and addressed the audience with a statement against abolishing the fees for Czech Television and Czech Radio. The trigger was a decision by the lower house of parliament at half past four on Saturday morning: the government bill to abolish the fees passed to a second reading.

Actor Tomáš Jirman apologised for the company having to interrupt the bows, and Jan Fišar explained that the performers wanted to respond to what had happened in parliament in the early hours of Saturday.

“Television costs next to nothing” — and who pays for it

Jirman recalled a line from the play they had just performed: television costs peanuts, so why pay for it. According to the actors, the answer is obvious: it is paid for by citizens, not by the government. That is exactly why society needs independent media that provide objective information regardless of who is in power at the moment.

Fišar quoted the Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies, Tomio Okamura (SPD), who called paying for something one does not use, and which he believes works against one’s interests, incredibly vile and immoral. Jirman replied that the media do not exist to bend the truth to the interests of ruling officials, least of all those who, in his words, demonstrably and repeatedly lie.

A message to politicians

To politicians, above all from ANO, SPD and the Motorists movement (Motoristé sobě), the performers conveyed a thought about the meaning of public service: paying for something you do not use yourself is not only moral but is the foundation on which society functions. Jirman listed examples: the healthy and the young pay for hospitals and for care of the injured, the sick and the old; the employed pay for unemployment benefits; people without a car pay for road construction. Taxpayers also fund public transport in, say, Uherský Brod, even if they have never been there.

Fišar added that even those who did not vote for these parties, and against whom their policies are aimed, chip in for their salaries. “That is called society, the state and democracy,” he stressed. The actors warned that if democracy is entrusted to those who do not wish it well, society can easily lose it.

Fišar also pointed to a paradox in the position of Motoristé sobě, quoting their election programme: they do not want public media to be financed directly from the state budget, because then they would become government media.

The audience responded to the statement from the whole NDM company with instant, prolonged standing applause.

Around Prague, based on reporting by novinky.cz