Amendment pushes for wider access to public media
Deputies from the Civic Platform (PO), the National Conservative Alliance (SKL) and Solidarity Election Action (AWS) last week submitted a draft amendment to the radio and television bill that aims to make the media accessible to wireless operators.
The draft states that although current law provides for cable operators' broadcasting of public media, it ignores new technologies, like digital platforms. In Poland, 710,000 households have access to digital broadcasting and 20% have satellite dishes. Under the proposed legislation, wireless operators would be able to broadcast via public television or radio, although they would have to cover transmission costs and pay royalty fees.
If the draft submitted to the Sejm becomes law, Poland would join France and Germany in making public media available through all means of transmission. In France, legislators last year introduced a law under which all operators, no matter what broadcast technology they use, are required to transmit public television. "It's a citizen's right to choose from different kinds of transmission because it's he who pays the subscription fee for public media," according to the draft.
The proposed legislation may also end an ongoing dispute between public broadcaster Telewizja Polska's (TVP) managing board and Wizja TV digital platform. Wizja TV, launched in 1998 and owned by Amsterdam-based United Pan-Europe Communications (UPC), has tried to incorporate TVP into its package of programs. TVP is present on a competing digital platform, Cyfra+. The two companies signed an agreement to create a news channel, a move that was challenged by TVP's official owner, the Treasury Ministry. TVP, however, chose to remain with the Cyfra platform only.
While TVP's President Robert Kwiatkowski initially argued that public television cannot cooperate with a broadcaster that does not have a license, that obstacle disappeared when Wizja was granted a broadcasting license last June. But according to a source who wished to remain anonymous, Kwiatkowski and TVP's board are still against putting the station's programming on Wizja TV's platform.
Marek Sowa of UPC Polska, UPC's Polish affiliate, said there is no reason why Wizja TV shouldn't transmit TVP. "Polskie Radio (public radio) is already on our platform, so why shouldn't we have TVP too?" Sowa said. "It's hard to say how the absence of TVP affects our number of subscribers because most of them have access to TVP through their terrestrial antennas anyway, but if you simply compare our programming with others TVP is simply not there."
Juliusz Braun, chairman of the National Television and Radio Council (KRRiTV), the media watchdog, last week signed a new broadcasting license for radio RMF FM, the nation's top national commercial broadcaster.
Its old license expired on May 25. "Under the new license we can't split, like we used to, our advertising and programming time in smaller cities," said Anna Kozlowska, PR director at RMF FM. "Therefore all our local services will disappear from the air on Saturday (May 26)."
The council's decision was aimed at strengthening the position of local broadcasters, who so far have been losing out to national broadcasters for advertising. For the past three months RMF has been trying to persuade the council to change its stance. While that is unlikely to happen, the station intends to continue pushing for the return of its split-programming rights. "We will first appeal against the council's decision," Kozlowska said. "That will be our last attempt to reach a compromise with the council. If that doesn't work, we will appeal to the Main Administration Court (NSA)."
But according to Joanna Stempien, press spokeswoman for KRRiTV's Braun, Stanislaw Tyczynski, RMF FM's president was asked officially whether he was interested in getting the new license in the form proposed by the council. "He said yes," Stempien said.
RMF FM will have to undergo extensive restructuring at its local outlets, which employ 200 staff. RMF FM's former local stations, however, could be used by a new station, Radio Nostalgia. Team FM, a subsidiary of RMF FM, applied to the KRRiTV for broadcasting licenses for 16 local stations to operate within the Nostalgia group. But Kozlowska said she didn't know when the council might consider Nostalgia's license application. "We couldn't afford to wait for the council's decision, which might take months, (and require) keeping our local offices ready," she said.
Jan Wejchert, president of ITI, a Polish media and entertainment group and the owner of TVN, told Reuters last week that he plans to list his company on the Warsaw Stock Exchange (WSE) in October.
ITI is already listed on the Luxembourg Stock Exchange (LSE), but Wejchert said the company's share price on the LSE doesn't reflect its real value. "We would like to have a proper valuation," he told Reuters. Wejchert estimated that an IPO in Warsaw could raise $200 million an amount that could be used to create new TV channels and develop Multikino, ITI's network of cinemas. He added that 80% of ITI's shares would be listed on WSE while the remainder would be listed on the LSE.
