THE STATE-RUN STV television network has given a narrow group of managers contracts calling for up to one year's severance pay in case they are dismissed. The contracts are meant as insurance against politically-motivated firings after fall elections, but have been heavily criticised as repeating the excesses of the station's former management before 1998 elections under Igor Kubiš.
Members of the STV Council, the television station's governing body, expressed anger at the news, with one member promising to have STV director Milan Materák dismissed if the reports prove true.
