Draft law to limit broadcast rights; PKN hits the road
A provision in amendments to the media law that limits broadcast rights for live coverage of high-profile sporting events is drawing the ire of the sports and business communities as well as some law makers.
Under the provision, broadcast rights for major sporting events such as the Olympics and World Cup would be reserved for national broadcasters. This provision is contained in amendments to the media law that would also open Polish broadcasters to expanded foreign ownership. The entire package is now in Parliament for review.
Restrictions of broadcast rights are limited to major events and bring Polish law in line with ground rules in other European Union countries, proponents say. A basic aim is to guarantee the rights of the national audience, they said.
But sports and some government officials counter that the move is against the free market and would stunt growth of the nation's struggling sports industry.
The National Radio and Television Council (KRRiTV), which crafted the amendments, drew up a list of sports events, such as the Olympic Games and semi-finals and finals of the World Cup, that should be broadcast by TV stations with a national reach. That means covering at least 80% of the country.
While the amended law doesn't indicate specific broadcasters, only public broadcaster Telewizja Polska (TVP) and private station Polsat qualify under the proposed game rules.
"Access to some basic sports events, broadcast on TV, shouldn't depend on someone's financial standing," said Joanna Stepien, spokeswoman for Juliusz Braun, head of the KRRiTV. "The council's goal was to protect the interests of the average Polish TV viewer. The government, apparently, took all that into act."
In recent months, pay TV stations such as Wizja Sport, Wizja TV's new thematic channel, and Canal+ have gobbled up rights and upped the stakes for live coverage of sporting events in the race to increase their subscriber bases. That has left terrestial broadcasters such as Polsat and TVP on the sidelines.
TVP failed to purchase coverage rights of two important football matches, Poland-England at Wembley and Poland-Bulgaria, presented by Canal+ and Wizja TV respectively. It also lost a chance to broadcast the 2002 World Cup, said Tomasz Welnicki, head of the Culture and Media Committee in the Sejm, the lower house of Parliament. Welnicki described the proposal on broadcast rights as absurd.
"There is no need for such regulations as it's TVP's simple duty to get the best possible transmissions of sports events," he argued. "Polish legislators have no right to decide, let's say, for an owner of a stadium in Sweden, who he is going to sell the rights to."
But on home turf, Polish viewers more and more are facing entry fees to watch live, high-profile games. The entrance fee for Wizja TV, for example, is zl. 299 for a digital decoder and another zl. 59 a month for a basic programming package including the new sports thematic channel. Canal+, which focuses on films and sports programming, offers access to its sports coverage for zl. 35-zl. 69 in monthly fees.
Although that put media coverage more in line with European standards, the changes might go too far, said Marcin Kubacki, head of Wizja Sport.
"It's the pay TV stations that add to the financing of Polish sports," Kubacki said. "Football clubs live on broadcasts, so the better the prices are, the more they get."
Soccer clubs in Poland make $1 million per year on TV coverage of their matches, said Michal Listkiewicz, head of the Polish Football Association (PZPN). The national team receives $7 million-$10 million in revenue from broadcasts every two years, he said. "If the prices of TV coverage go down significantly, sports are going to die in Poland."
While lawmakers debate the proposal, broadcasters are meeting mid-field. For example, Wizja TV, which had the rights to broadcast the Poland-Sweden game last month, signed a deal with TVP to transmit the game later.
"We also share the Champions League in the way that Wizja TV broadcasts only parts of matches, TVP does the rest of it," said Kubacki of Wizja.
Somethin' from nothin'
Creating something from nothing is pretty much what advertising and public relations firms are all about. But for Polski Koncern Naftowy's (PKN) initial public offering, ad agency Discau Advertising and NBS Public Relation moved from scratch to the finish line in record time.
"It's a world record in terms of timing," said Leszek Stafiej, advertising project manager working with Discau Advertising, which won the bid for PKN's ad campaign. "We started preparing the advertising campaign on Sept. 25," Stafiej said. "The main film with its versions was created within two weeks."
That film introduced the fledgling company with gleaming new trucks carrying the corporate logo. That's no small feat considering PKN only officially registered in September.
The campaigns are part of PKN's run up to an initial public offering (IPO) scheduled for this month. Since the kick-off in early October, the campaign has consisted of 300 TV and 600 radio spots and more than 900 print media ads, Stafiej said. Now in the final stretch, the campaign last week launched its below-the-line campaign with posters and information at 600 brokerage outlets and PKN's 1,500 gas stations.
Katowice-based Discau's consortium bid included McCann Erickson handling media planning and buying and Dialog-Galicja dealing with direct marketing.
NBS Public Relation is cooperating with London-based City Gate Dewe Rogerson to introduce PKN abroad.
Parties involved in PKN's share offering would not disclose the value of the PR and ad campaign contracts. Budgets for similar campaigns generally run more than zl. 10 million ($4 million), industry members said. In its prospectus, PKN listed zl. 43 million ($10.75 million) for promotional activities, including advertising and public relations campaigns, costs of the prospectus and the road show.
Justyna Wrobel contributed to this article
