Rigid spot pricing policy hits TVP's revenues

A fall in revenues from advertisements by around zł. 40 million, combined with lower income from subscribers by zł. 10 million, will cause this year's revenues of Telewizja Polska (TVP) to drop by around zł. 50 million as compared to 2002. Wojciech Kabarowski, the general director for economic issues at TVP announced during yesterday's press conference that revenues will fall this year to around zł. 1.6 billion. The reason for this is the effect of a lack of flexibility in terms of discounts as compared to commercial competitors, which according to Kabarowski, sell advertising spots 50% cheaper than public TV. Kabarowski also complained about the problem of collecting TV license fees, which constitute around a third of TVP's revenues. According to the broadcaster's data, 93% of companies and 50% of households do not pay their license fees. In order to minimize the effect of lower revenues, TVP's management has decided to cut costs by zł. 35 million, which will allow the company to have a net profit of zł. 30 million by the end of the year. (Rzeczpospolita, p. B5) A.K.