Motion to dismiss TVP chief evokes political fault lines
This Wednesday, ruling Solidarity Election Action (AWS) and Freedom Union (UW) coalition and Democratic Left Alliance (SLD) and Polish Peasants Party (PSL) opposition politicians will fight on opposite sides in yet another political joust regarding the partisanship of state-owned Telewizja Polska (TVP) when the broadcaster's supervisory board debates a motion to dismiss its management board president, Robert Kwiatkowski. Critics have long accused Kwiatkowski, a former coordinator of President Aleksander Kwasniewski's electoral campaign, of using TVP's programming to promote the SLD and its leaders. But with TVP's critics unable to formulate a coherent strategy to change the status quo, the opposition's political grip on the station is not likely to weaken.
"The public broadcaster, which is the main source of information for Polish society, has been manipulated for the sake of one political group," argued Lech Jaworski, a TVP supervisory board member associated with AWS who put forward the motion to dismiss Kwiatkowski at the end of April. "In my opinion, public television has already started the presidential campaign of the current president," he said.
What makes the situation worse for critics of TVP's partisanship is that the National Television and Radio Council (KRRiTV), a media watchdog that according to media law is supposed to protect public media against political pressures, is not free of political leanings either. The Parliament, Senate and president elect the nine-member council, and though those who sit on the council cannot be active in political parties, they all have their own political affiliations.
TVP is owned by the Treasury Ministry, but it is KRRiTV that elects eight out of the nine members that sit on TVP's supervisory board, while the treasury minister has the right to pick the remaining member.
KRRiTV elected the current TVP supervisory board, which controls and elects TVP's management board, three years ago. The existing board is dominated by members allied with SLD. It has two UW and one AWS-affiliated members, with the remaining six affiliated with SLD and PSL.
But according to Jaworski, what is worse than TVP's lack of political evenhandedness is that the broadcaster has been neglecting its public mission and becoming similar to commercial stations in terms of its programming. "The quality of programs is going down and the most valuable ones are never shown at prime time," Jaworski argued. "The company is ill-run and the reforms promised by the management are not working at all."
The reforms Jaworski referred to are those proposed by Walter Chelstowski, a TVP management board member who last year promised to initiate and coordinate sweeping changes that would make TVP capable of competing with private broadcasters. Part of Chelstowski's restructuring scheme involved layoffs aimed at getting rid of so-called invisible unemployment, which results from having still-filled but redundant positions. Chelstowski said many of TVP's staff would have to fight for assignments, which would revolutionize the 6,700-strong public company.
But "instead, TVP's bureaucracy is only growing," Jaworski said. "At the same time, ad revenue has dropped." TVP's share in the ad market has decreased from 37.3% in January this year to 35.6% in April, compared to Polsat's ad revenue increase from 28.9% in January to 31.7% in April, according to estimates from market research company AGB Polska.
Andrzej Dlugosz, one of the UW-affiliated supervisory board members, agreed that the winds of change are not blowing through TVP strongly enough. "The reform is not working because practically nobody has been laid off," Dlugosz argued. "You can't implement real reforms without a serious cutting of TVP's personnel. If you would like to follow Polskie Radio (PR), the public radio, which cut its staff by 200 (out of 1,600), TVP would have to lay off some 800 people."
Given the political structure of the supervisory board, Jaworski's motion doesn't seem to have a ghost of a chance of succeeding. Dlugosz, who as of last week still didn't know the justification for or details of the motion, said he would probably vote against dismissing Kwiatkowski. "Even if the motion has reasonable justification it will become only an element of a political fight, " he argued. "AWS' goal is not to end TVP partisanship but to take it (the broadcaster) over from SLD."
According to Tomasz Welnicki, AWS deputy head of the media and culture parliamentary committee, UW will not cooperate with its coalition partner in the media sector because it needs to protect its current interests there. "Thus, the motion has rather a symbolic meaning," he said.
Nevertheless, the result of the vote on the motion, which according to Jaworski is a kind of a non-confidence vote against TVP's management, might send a clear message to Treasury Minister Emil Wasacz. As an official owner of TVP, Wasacz will chair the broadcaster's shareholders meeting to assess TVP's annual report, due to be presented on June 30. "The minister cannot support the motion but unofficially, it can have an impact on how he'll evaluate the company," said a source at the Treasury Ministry.
Still, the outcome of this procedure won't change much, according to Dlugosz. "I would expect that Wasacz will reject the report but it won't mean anything for TVP in practice, since the minister cannot even dismiss the board member he had elected," Dlugosz said. In addition, Dlugosz said TVP's financial situation speaks for the management. In 1999, TVP had over zl. 1.6 billion ($410,256 million) in revenue as compared to 1998 revenue of zl. 1.2 billion ($342,857 million). "So, if the report is rejected it will be only for political reasons," he said.
There is also not much chance for significant changes after elections for supervisory boards of public media are held within the next two months. "I predict that the situation will be even worse as SLD will probably have six out of nine board members," Welnicki said.
If there are personnel changes within TVP's management at all, these may result from the new salary-cutting law for treasury companies like TVP, which comes into effect Aug. 1. Meanwhile, only the management and supervisory board knows the details of TVP management's contracts, since wage figures have not been publicly released despite requests from the treasury minister. "Part of TVP's management board may quit since their legendary salaries will dramatically drop," Welnicki said.
According to Dlugosz, however, the May 2 announcement of Chelstowski's resignation, which the reform coordinator said is a protest against incoming "ridiculously smaller" wages, is not the beginning of a long-term trend within management. "He wanted to resign a year ago anyway, " Dlugosz said.
So is there anything that can be done to free a public broadcaster from political pressures just weeks before the presidential campaign begins? Welnicki said the treasury minister should take recourse in the commercial code more often when making decisions regarding the running of TVP.
Dlugosz suggested merging all the public media into one. He has pursued his own suggestion by acting as both a TVP supervisory board member and head of PR's supervisory board. "While all the world media keep merging, we have picked the exactly opposite way," Dlugosh said, adding that he remains aware of the concept's dangers. The creation of a huge public media holding containing TVP, PR and the Polish News Agency (PAP) would be of great benefit to the political faction that managed to gain control over it.
