The current Minister of Culture, Martina Šimkovičová, is a very prominent figure in Robert Fico’s government. She filled this post in October 2023 as a nominee of the SNS party. Even before that, she worked for eighteen long years on Markíza television. In the podcast hosted by the son of the well-known ex-politician Richard Sulík, the minister spoke openly about earnings in private television and in the ministry.
Šimkovičová worked in yellow-blue television since 1998. She started as a sports anchor and later was the face of the main evening news. She formed a pair of presenters with Patrik Švajd, who is still in Markíza today. Šimkovičová interrupted her television career in 2013 due to the birth of her daughter.
After her return, she took charge of her own Reflex Special show, but the project did not reach the required viewership. The television terminated cooperation with her after she shared posts directed against refugees on the social network. In recent years, she appeared mainly as a presenter on the screens of the alternative internet television TV Slovan.
In the elections of March 5, 2016, she entered the parliament on the candidate of Boris Kollár’s new party We are a family. However, at the beginning of June 2016, the We Are Family movement, along with two other deputies, expelled her from their club. She subsequently worked as an unclassified member of Parliament in the National Assembly of the Slovak Republic. In the early September elections in 2023, she successfully ran for the SNS.
Šimkovičová revealed in the interview that she was doing better financially as a presenter. “If I were to go back to the past, in which I worked on radio or television, then, paradoxically, I had a better financial situation than today. So I earned more than a minister. I’m not saying that I earn little, but…” she spoke openly.
It is not a secret for an ordinary Slovak, what sums come to the account of the highest-ranking people in our country. “This is publicly available. We have frozen salaries, but lump-sum compensations are increasing. Now it’s coming to my account… What’s coming to my account? Now the last one was at 7400“, she shocked with her words about the amount of earnings.
Although this amount may seem quite high to an ordinary citizen, according to Šimkovičová, it was better in her previous job. “So when I worked on private television, it was financially very interesting,” she added to her thought.
