KRRiTV to get more politically balanced political appointees

"Changes are coming," Tomasz Welnicki, deputy head of the Sejm's Culture and Media Committee told the Business Journal last week. "Finally."
The nine-member KRRiTV will get three new members in coming weeks, he added. The Sejm will appoint two and the third will be appointed by President Aleksander Kwasniewski. The new appointees will replace three members whose six-year terms finish at the end late this month and early in April.
In choosing the council, the Sejm, Senate and president each get to choose three members. Each governmental body replaces its own picks as they turn over. The Sejm's nominees need to have at least 25 deputies supporting their candidacy and then get at least 50% plus one vote in favor in the house.
"They don't have to be recommended by a party or a political alliance, but of course at the end of the day these are purely political candidates," Welnicki said.
The opposition Left Democratic Alliance (SLD) was more about ideals last week.
"We do hope that AWS will go for candidates with less of a political agenda," said Andrzej Urbanczyk, spokesman for the SLD's Sejm Caucus, also one of the leaders of the Sejm's culture and media committee. "But knowing AWS and their striving for all the possible power they can get, it's difficult to be optimistic."
With two spots now going to the Sejm, the current government coalition of Solidarity Election Action (AWS) and Freedom Union (UW) are hoping to have a five-member majority on the board.
"It's not only the total number, but also the crucial positions we are looking at," said Welnicki, an AWS member.
The two members due to be replaced by the Sejm's appointees are Boleslaw Sulik, president of the agency, and Andrzej Zarebski, who is the secretary of the council.
Senior coalition partner AWS made it clear last week that it was ready to give at least one of the positions from the Sejm picks to its partner UW. But it planned to have one of its own in the president's chair.
"Realistically, it will most likely be one candidate for us and one for UW," Welnicki said. "But then there is a question who gets to be the new president and who will be his deputy."
While AWS wants the president's spot, it's not clear what will happen to the deputy president's position. The current holder of that position, SLD-member Witold Grabos is not losing his spot. But a new council president may motion for a vote on a deputy of his or her own choosing.
"Which of course does not have to necessarily happen," Welnicki said.
The third member to be replaced some two weeks after the Sejm chooses its two candidates is Jan Szafraniec, the council's member appointed by former president Lech Walesa.
Szafraniec will step down mid-April. Kwasniewski's choice to replace him is reported to be Karol Jakubowicz, currently head of the analysis and strategic bureau with public broadcaster Telewizja Polska (TVP). While Jakubowicz is officially "politically neutral," according to Welnicki he's "closer to the left than left itself."
Welnicki would not comment on possible coalition candidates for the Sejm's two picks. "It's way too soon, right now we're discussing principles rather than names," he said. "But whoever our candidates are we hope they'll change the existing balance of power."
The more AWS-balanced council will still remain itself, a rather stiff government structure with limited executive powers.
"Today the real political powers of the council are practically non-existent; not after it has granted all the most important licenses already," Urbanczyk said.
"Of course KRRiTV can't go to TVP or public radio and change the members of the managing board, and the harshest executive tool it has is the actual fining of the broadcasters," Welnicki said. "But with the money it gets from the budget it can and it should closely watch the market and punish those who play against the rules."
Face lift
The print market is set for yet another face lift, but no, this time it's not Prawo i Gospodarka undergoing another name or layout change. Rather, it's the austere Rzeczpospolita, the country's second largest daily, that will try to spruce itself up.
The former mouthpiece of the Communist party plans by the end of April to add color to its broadsheet pages.
"It's a natural direction, particularly when we're just completing construction of two brand-new printing houses," Grzegorz Gauden, the president of Presspublica, which publishes the daily newspaper, told the Business Journal last week.
"These won't be fireworks, but we will introduce color on 16 pages, including mastheads and ads."
The company, which is 51% owned by Norway's Presspublica Holding and 49% owned by PPW Rzeczpospolita, plans to complete its DM 50 million investment into two printing houses located in Poznan and Raszyn next month.
The facelift for the currently 32-page daily will also include a slightly smaller format, as well as a four-section division with separate coverage of general news, economy, legal issues and a thematic supplement.
"The ultimate idea is to make the paper more friendly for a reader," Gauden said.
According to SMG/KRC Poland Media, 6% of the nation declared in the fourth quarter last year that they read Rzeczpospolita at least once a week.
The move comes as daily newspaper market leader Gazeta Wyborcza continues to invest in its own in-house printing facilities and to roll out more and more thematic supplements. Wyborcza's owner, Agora, is currently in the midst of an initial public offering (IPO) through the Warsaw Stock Exchange (WSE).
Heavy spending
Media and television surveyor AGB Polska last week said how much money the various pension funds have spent on advertising since getting the go-ahead to begin promoting themselves Feb. 16.
Eleven funds that made television appearances in the first week of advertising spent some zl. 11.3 million ($3.05 million).
The most generous of them, PKO/Handlowy, forked out zl. 3.13 million ($846,000) and actually weighed in as the second largest TV advertiser for Feb. 16-21, topped only by traditionally generous Procter & Gamble. The second largest spender, PTE BIG Banku Gdanskiego, spent zl. 1.25 million ($338,000). It was followed by PTE Dom, owned by Citibank and insurer Warta, which spent a total of zl. 1.09 million ($295,000).
Of those reaping the rewards, TVP pulled in zl. 4.56 million ($1.23 million), followed by the zl. 3.85 million ($1.04 million) private station Polsat attracted.
Omnipresent
Talk about having your finger in every pie. Rzeczpospolita reported last week that private television station Polsat may take up a zl. 150 million ($40.54 million) share issue in Poznan-based Invest Bank. The shares would give Polsat, owned by media mogul Jan Solorz-Zak, approximately half the voting rights in the bank.
Neither of the parties involved would confirm the report.
Although it seems that Polsat is getting involved in everything, the pairing doesn't come completely out of the blue. Invest Bank and Polsat had already teamed up to form a pension fund two weeks ago called the Polsat Pension Fund (Business Journal, February 15-21.)
What's next, Mr. Solorz? An attempt to purchase a stake in a shipyard? Oops, we forgot, it's been tried already.