Of this sum, SKK 720 million should serve to cover losses from past years and SKK 267 million is a loss projection for this year. The latter figure also includes severance payments for 1,125 employees who will be laid off at the end of May. STV management says that if it gets the required sum, it will not ask for any additional operating subsidies from the state budget and the public television will stop producing further debts.

Branislav Zahradnik from STV crisis management told SITA that the television has already sent its request to the Finance Ministry. STV wants to obtain at least SKK 200 million by the end of May to cover its expenses for severance payments. The rest must arrive on its account by the end of the year. Management claims that after it obtains the desired sum, it will be financed exclusively from TV viewer fees, advertising revenue and other incomes from its business activity.

Finance Ministry’s spokesman Peter Papanek specified that negotiations with STV representatives seeking a solution to the financial situation of the ailing public television are in the final phase. If the meeting scheduled for Friday comes to a consensus, the ministry will submit the document to the cabinet and recommend ministers to approve it.

This week it turned out that the planned mass layoffs in public service Slovak Television (STV) might become complicated as STV will have to pay severance payments to employees laid off as of May 31 by June 10 at the latest. New STV director Richard Rybnicek announced mass layoffs in early April, canceling 1,125 working positions, in order to save the heavily debt ridden public service broadcaster. The STV emergency regime will last until the end of this year, within which STV will reduce its production by 50 percent and lay off 1,125 employees.