Court decides to legalize POT

TVN and Polsat received the green light from the Office for Competition and Consumer Protection (UOKiK) for a joint digital project. Last year, the overall turnover of both companies exceeded EUR 50 (zł.208) million and thus UOKiK's permission for the creation of the Polish Television Broadcaster (POT) by TVN and Polsat was essential in order to determine if the project would break anti-monopoly regulations.

POT is going to provide radio and TV stations with digital broadcasting services, which, pursuant to EU law, are to replace analogue broadcasting by 2014. According to Cezary Banasiński, the president of UOKiK, the establishment of POT is not going to have an adverse influence on the market as neither TVN nor Polsat broadcast TV or radio programs on the digital terrestrial platform and thus there's no danger of one of the entities achieving a dominant position.

In the justification of his decision, Banasiński also pointed to the fact that POT will only be able to start operations after it has won a competition for frequencies announced by the National Broadcasting Council (KRRiT). In fact, in many cases POT will simply implement KRRiT's decisions as to which programs are to be included in the broadcasted digital signal.

Wiesław Walendziak, the former president of TVP, is expected to be nominated as president of POT.