“Ninety people is a number that has been part of Czech Television’s plans for a long time. At the same time, we try to make it as painless as possible for the institution. We will therefore primarily delete table places from which someone has already left and which are vacant. Alternatively, we will not extend the contracts of people whose contracts are already expiring, etc.,” explained Jan Souček for e15.
About a month ago, according to the director general, he started a debate on how to spread this number among the individual sections. According to him, it should be clear by the beginning of summer, and the layoffs themselves should, by estimation, take place at the turn of summer and fall.
“Divisional managers now have the opportunity to discuss with the human resources manager how the numbers will affect their specific divisions. As soon as we know, I will immediately start negotiating with the trade unions so that we can share the information with each other,” added Souček, who says he cannot give any details yet, as everything is in negotiations.
The financing model is unknown, it will be determined by the amendment
So it is not yet clear how many of the total number of ninety positions will be unoccupied table positions and how many people exactly which departments will dismiss. According to Souček, it is therefore not possible to comment on whether he will also be laid off in news and journalism.
“I’ve said before that if savings are made, then in news and publicism it is extinguished only last. But I can’t rule out that it will affect this department to some small extent. Maybe we will eliminate vacant positions in this division and not recruit new people for them, but I don’t know right now,” the CEO of ČT specified exclusively for e15.
Czech Television, with an annual budget of less than eight billion crowns, has three thousand employees and roughly the same number of externs. Its funding is dependent on concessionaire fees, which were last increased in 2008. The media amendment, which will head to the Chamber of Deputies in the coming weeks, should also respond to this.
The proposal includes an increase in the television fee from the current 135 crowns per month to 160 crowns. At the same time, the structure of his payment, the so-called definition of a taxpayer, is to be changed. Newly, fees should be paid by every household where someone has a smartphone or other device with an internet connection. Together, these measures should add approximately 1.4 billion kroner to the budget of the Czech Republic annually, significantly helping the financing of the institution.
However, it is difficult to plan in a situation where it is not clear how television will be financed next year. “We are now in a situation where we are approving projects for next year with the option of contractually canceling them if the funding is not increased,” Souček describes the provisional measure.
An increase for inflation does not solve anything
However, the media was informed that the politicians are also discussing a variant that would introduce a simple indexation of the fee instead of a one-time increase, that is, its regular increase by inflation. The current year would therefore raise it by only two percent.
However, the director of ČT rejects this possibility, saying that the option of mere indexation is, in his opinion, unrealistic. “If we calculate inflation since 2008, when the fee has not increased, it is about 70 percent in total. That’s why a two percent increase is pointless and wouldn’t solve anything. I really don’t know anything about the fact that such an option would be discussed among the politicians,” says the CEO and reminds that the media amendment addresses both the increase of fees and their regular valorization or indexation. “Therefore, these are two different issues that cause confusion,” adds Souček.
“And if it should theoretically be like that, it doesn’t solve anything for television. We would have to lay off really massively and we would have to cancel production,” warns the CEO.
“This is a great confusion and misunderstanding. There are many variants circulating in the media. There are slightly fewer variants that circulate among politicians. But none of them have been decided definitively, so let’s wait for that,” he states.
Jan Souček took office last October. Since then, he has already implemented some of his major plans, such as the restructuring of the management, but not all of them turned out as he imagined. For example, the heads of the ČT1 and ČT2 programs, whom he himself selected and appointed, he dismissed again after half a year.
The long-term personnel plans, in which, according to him, Souček, on the contrary, is successful, include the growth of the number of women in television management. According to Souček, the ratio of men and women in management positions in the news and journalism division is now even 6:5 in favor of women.
The next step is related to this: the company nursery school, which has been talked about on Czech TV for fifteen years. “We have finally moved forward and in Prague and Brno we expect to establish a kindergarten for ČT employees within a year, which will significantly contribute to the reconciliation of work and family life,” believes Souček. An external company should run the nursery for television.
The CEO of Czech Television, Jan Souček, gave e15 a large video interview in the program FLOW, where we discussed all the mentioned topics in more detail. The interview is scheduled to be released on the e15 website next week, Tuesday, May 7.
