Is Czech Television, a state-owned TV broadcaster, funded with U.S. foreign aid grants, which could influence its content? No, that's not true: Czech Television confirmed to Lead Stories that they do not receive any funding from the U.S. government or from U.S. agencies that provide such support.
The claim appeared in a video (archived here) published on TikTok on April 14, 2025. The video contains a clip from an interview that debates which Czech organizations might have been funded by USAID money (archived here). It alleges that the Czech state broadcaster, Czech Television, or CT, as it is known, might have been among them. The video has a text overlay in Czech, translated by Lead Stories as:
Czech television has its unique grant number in the U.S. sources, which basically means that we have a public service broadcaster that is linked to one of the most influential NGOs in Europe, People in Need, and moreover, it is financed from U.S. government funds.
Why do we pay CT when it is financed by the U.S. government?
This is what the post looked like on TikTok at the time of writing:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Wed Jun 4 09:05:45 2025 UTC)
The clip shown in the above TikTok video is from an interview (archived here) published on the Radio Universum website on April 18, 2025. The website has often shared (archived here) conspiracy theories or pro-Russian or anti-vaccination propaganda. The person featured in the interview is Natalie Vachatova, who was previously linked to the non-parliamentary Czech party Trikolora (archived here). On her website (archived here), Vachatova alleges, for example, that the U.S. government financed Czech NGOs to spread LGBT-friendly agendas at Czech schools to sway the children's opinion. These statements are beyond the scope of this fact check.
In the interview featured in the TikTok video, Vachatova alleges that the Czech state television broadcaster, Ceska Televize, in Czech, also "likely" received such U.S. grants and that the broadcaster is linked to a major Czech-based NGO, People in Need. These statements are not correct.
Czech Television does not receive any grants from the U.S. government or U.S. agencies that provide financial support, according to an email from the broadcaster's spokesman Radek Konecny (archived here) to Lead Stories from June 2, 2025. According to the law (archived here), Czech state TV and radio broadcasters are funded mainly with fees collected from the public. These media organisations are also obliged to provide a "public service" (archived here), i.e., objective, verified, and balanced information that fosters the free formation of opinions. A detailed Czech Television budget for 2025 shows that such fees are the main source of income. There is no mention of foreign grants. The budget can be seen here (archived here).
Additionally, there is currently no connection between Czech Television and the Czech-based NGO People in Need, the NGO's spokesman, Tomas Urban (archived here), wrote to Lead Stories in an email on June 6, 2025. The two have been linked only in the past, Urban stated. Urban also confirmed that People in Need has used USAID money to help people in Ukraine or Congo, for instance, and had to stop some of its support because of the cuts carried out by the U.S. administration.
According to the NGO's website, Czech Television was one of the NGO's founders in 1994. The NGO was previously known as People in Need - Society at Czech Television, but in 2007, it changed its name to People in Need, as stated on its website (archived here). The NGO does not receive any financial contributions from Czech Television, the website also states, and it "applies for broadcasting space in accordance with the law in a tender procedure."
