And the beat goes on
Radio shows have changed dramatically during the past 10 years as stations have tried to keep up with the times and the competition. But one program has managed to survive the ongoing media revolution in Poland the hit show for teenagers and 20-somethings, Pop List.
The show, a Top 40-style hit parade of all the latest tunes, has been broadcast by Polskie Radio's Trojka (http://www.radio.com.pl/trojka) for almost 19 years. This month amiable host Marek Niedzwiecki celebrated his 1,000th program.
Better known as "the bear," (his surname means "bear" in English), Niedzwiecki recalls the program's tough early days. As well as being classed by the communists as public enemy No. 1 with his treasonable showbiz sounds, "the bear" also helped encourage many of today's radio celebrities to be, well, celebrities.
When martial law was introduced in 1981, the state-run Program 1 was the only radio station on the air. But by the next year all the banned stations were allowed to return to the airwaves and Trojka was one of them.
Andrzej Turski, who was named to head up the station, decided to change the program's format to appeal to the country's youth Pop List was born.
"The idea wasn't anything special, but Marek Niedzwiecki hit the nail on the head," Turski said. "It was my (staff) who found him."
Playing the latest Western pop music for the first time in Poland was the easy part: For "the bear" the difficulty was getting hold of the records, which took some creativity.
"We received recordings via private channels," Niedzwiecki said. "Piotr Kaczkowski (a well-known host for Trojka) was on friendly terms with LOT flight attendants."
"I also used to wait for an attendant in the airport with a flower," Niedzwiecki said, adding that the flower indicated he was the man to give the recordings to.
"We had lots of private contacts," Turski added. "(In the 1980s) we didn't boast about it, but we were provided with the latest Billboard (the U.S. pop list) hits by the U.S. Embassy."
In the years since, Niedzwiecki's program has become a "school" of sorts for many fans of radio who now run many of Poland's radio stations. "I grew up with the List," said Krzysztof Nepelski of RMF FM, Poland's No. 1 radio station. Today, Trojka ranks No. 4. "Later, it even surprised me that many of my younger colleagues also grew up with Niedzwiecki's List."
Nepelski said he understands why Niedzwiecki and his Pop List program have remained so popular. "Niedzwiedzki did things differently and started to broadcast music that was forbidden," he said.
Krzysztof Kouyoumdjian of Radio Zet also said Niedzwiecki shaped his musical tastes. "I remember that I wrote down the results of the Pop List every week," Kouyoumdjian said. "It was a good school of English for me."
But the program wouldn't have been so successful without "the bear's" inimitable style. Kouyoumdjian recalled Niedzwiecki's whimsical habits of eating an apple on the air or bursting into the studio breathless unconventional acts for Polish radio hosts under communism.
