KRRiTV grants Wizja broadcast license
The media watchdog National Radio and Television Council (KRRiTV) voted last week to grant a broadcasting license for the satellite transmission of radio and television programs to Wizja TV, one of Poland's two digital platforms.
"Since the platform is Polish and addressed to a Polish audience, it should have a Polish license, it's as simple as that," said Andrzej Muras, president of Polska Telewizja Cyfrowa Wizja TV, whose owner, Medialne Towarzystwo Akcyjne, is 49% held by Amsterdam-based media group United Pan-Europe Communications (UPC). The council's resolution, which included granting a license to broadcast the platform's two channels, Wizja Jeden and Wizja Sport, now has to be reviewed by the communications minister. It will then be sent back to the council's chairman, who will sign the license.
The KRRiTV decision ends an almost two-year dispute between the two competing platforms, Wizja TV and Cyfra+, operated by Canal+, about the legality of broadcasting from abroad. Wizja TV had been accused by Cyfra+ of illegally broadcasting its programs. In response, the platform argued that it did have a concession from the U.K.-based Independent Television Commission, and that under the Convention on Transfrontier TV signed by Poland in 1989 its broadcast was legal. UPC declared it would apply for the license last year after acquiring @Entertainment, the then-owner of Wizja TV and Polska Telewizja Kablowa (PTK), and made its official application in April.
"It's kind of satisfying that such a giant broadcaster decided to submit itself to the regulations of Polish law," said Joanna Stepien, spokeswoman for KRRiTV Chairman Juliusz Braun. "The KRRiTV's decision is a step toward putting order on the Polish media market."
According to Krzysztof Surgowt, managing director of Astra Marketing Poland, KRRiTV's decision will send a clear message to other powerful international broadcasters whose interest in the Polish market has so far been superficial. "UPC might now take its interests in Poland even more seriously and others broadcasters will try to keep pace with them," he said.
Wizja TV was launched in September 1998. Today it offers 25 channels, 23 of which are in Polish. All Wizja TV subscribers have access to Polish TV stations such as TVN, Polsat Info and TV4.
According to Muras, the KRRiTV license will open a new era in the history of Wizja TV in Poland. "On Sept. 1, we plan to transfer broadcasting of Polish programs (Wizja Jeden and Wizja Sport) and some international programs to Poland," he said. "It wouldn't be possible without the concession."
Wizja TV's channels are transmitted via Astra satellite from the company's broadcasting center in Maidstone, England. According to Surgowt, the decision to transfer the broadcasting center to Poland is crucial for the development of the Polish media market. "It's important that UPC decided to place its future broadcasting center for Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia in Poland and not in England or for instance Austria," he said. "In the future, part of the production of programs other than Polish ones could be moved here too, it's not out of the question."
At first the broadcasting center of Wizja Jeden and Wizja Sport will be moved to Poreby Lesne near Warsaw, where Astra built its uplink, which is operated by Telekomunikacja Polska (TPSA). "But assuming we have the license and I expect that the KRRiTV should sign it not later than within a month, we can now plan to build our new uplink in Warsaw," Muras said. The start of the new uplink is scheduled for the first quarter of 2001. "Its localization hasn't been decided yet," Surgowt said. "Woronicza (where Telewizja Polska [TVP] is based) is one of the considered options." According to Pawel Sosnowski, head of TVP's press office, hosting and operating Wizja TV's broadcasting uplink is an interesting proposal. "I can't see any serious obstacles right now," he said.
The broadcasting license for Wizja TV might also warm relations between TVP and the digital platform. Earlier, TVP planned to work closely with competing digital platform Cyfra+. The two companies signed an agreement that was questioned by TVP's official owner, the Treasury Ministry. "We already arranged with Cyfra+ to create a news channel but the minister blocked all that," Sosnowski said. At the time, TVP didn't want to combine forces with Wizja TV. The digital platform, according to TVP President Robert Kwiatkowski, wasn't a legal broadcaster in Poland without the license. "Soon that obstacle will disappear," Sosnowski said. "But if we were to start talks with Wizja they will have to provide us with just as advantageous conditions as we have with Cyfra+."
