Eastlink to set up arts portal
Eastlink, a Warsaw-based consulting company, bought the Internet book-review site Latarnik.pl this month in a first step toward setting up an arts portal.
Jaroslaw Wlodarczyk, head of the popular science division at Proszynski i S-ka, the publishing house that set up Latarnik last year, said the company recently revised its Internet plans and decided to sell one of its sites. "We decided that we couldn't continue all of our projects," he said, "We care more about our Wirtualny Wszechswiat Web site, which gets more hits than Latarnik."
Proszynski i S-ka operates several Web sites, many of which are spin-offs from its publications, including fantastyka.pl. sciencefiction.pl, mapapolski.pl, dlaczego.pl, gimnazjum.pl and proszynski.pl.
"We've treated some projects like an incubator and they've cost us hundreds of thousands of zlotys," Wlodarczyk said. "But when the time is right, we decide whether to develop them further or find a buyer for them."
Despite the lack of special promotion by the company, Wlodarczyk said that Latarnik receives tens of thousands of hits every week. "We are happy with the price we got for Latarnik," he said, adding that he wasn't at liberty to disclose what that price was.
Maciej Zalewski, the owner of Eastlink, said that Latarnik had had several potential buyers. "Apparently, Proszynski hoped that its baby would grow more with us," he said. "While I won't reveal the price, I think that the fact that our project was convincing played an important role in the negotiations."
Zalewski said that a new company, Portal Internetowy Latarnik, would probably be registered in a week and would operate the arts portal, based on the Latarnik Web site. He said it would be launched in a month. "Latarnik is a good Web site, that's why we're going to add the arts portal to it while keeping the old address," Zalewski said.
In addition to book reviews, the new portal will include links to information about music, theater and cinema. Marek Radziwon, who has been credited for the service's success, will remain as Latarnik's editor. "New investment brings new hope, " he said. "One of my dreams is that one day Latarnik could evolve into an internet bookstore, but that's in the future."
Metropol, a free morning newspaper, has been launched in Warsaw. The new daily is published by Sweden-based Metro International, publisher and distributor of free daily newspapers in 13 countries. Metro International is listed on the New York and Stockholm stock exchanges and is valued at about $800 million. In Warsaw, 200,000 copies of Metropol are distributed daily in the city center and outside metro and railway stations.
zycie Warszawy, Warsaw's main daily, has a circulation of 50,000.
"They have time to read it while waiting for a tram," said Rene Frey, managing director of TPP Warszawa, the local publisher of Metropol. "The great thing with this is that we've added a new target group for the newspaper advertising market."
Frey said that Metropol is looking to attract young people who don't regularly read newspapers. "Between 50-55% of our readership worldwide are new readers," she said. "In Stockholm, (Metro) started in 1995 with 2.7 readers per copy. Today they are the largest newspaper with more than 700,000 daily readers."
Piotr Gembarowski, a program host at Telewizja Polska (TVP), has been accused of breaking the rules of journalism by TVP's Ethics Commission.
In an October interview with Marian Krzaklewski, two days before his unsuccessful bid for the presidency, Gembarowski interrupted his guest and would not allow him to speak, the commission said.
The commission added in its Nov. 1 report that Gembarowski had also quoted incorrect macroeconomic figures not previously verified by the program's editor. At the end of the interview, Krzaklewski made a public apology for Gembarowski's behavior. Gembarowski has since been suspended.
But Janusz Cieliszak, TVP's press spokesman, said the director of TVP1, which broadcast the interview, would likely reinstate Gembarowski. "Talks are in progress but no decision has been made yet," Cieliszak said. "Remember that Gembarowski has conducted 202 interviews and only one program has been criticized."
He added that TVP's board wasn't obligated to make changes because of the commission's report. "Of course, those rules are unusually important and have to be implemented on a daily basis, so the board will draw appropriate conclusions from the commission's statement," he said.
Hearst-Marquard, the publisher of Cosmopolitan and Shape, will re-launch the Polish edition of Marie Claire in March. The magazine had previously been published by MC Press but folded last December due to weak sales.
The second generation of Marie Claire will have a new staff and new editor in chief, Urszula Imieninska, the former editor of Viva, a bi-weekly. "The publisher still hasn't decided on the circulation," Imieninska said. The title's previous print run in Poland reached 250,000 copies. "The market is difficult, but I believe that Marie Claire should have a place in the market," she said. Marie Claire has 24 editions worldwide and 15 million readers.
Imieninska plans to create an easy-to-read, topical magazine that won't avoid more serious issues. "Readers will be able to relax while reading Marie Claire," she said.
