RMF agrees to pay for damage caused by concert goers
Krakow-based RMF FM radio said that it would pay at least zl. 50,000 to repair damage to buses and trams inflicted by concert goers after a station-sponsored rock show last week.
The concert, held at an airport 20 kilometers from Krakow, was the last stop on this year's Power Invasion (Inwazja mocy) tour, a six-year-old multi-city festival of free concerts intended to promote the radio station. The 2000 tour finished in Krakow in celebration of RMF's 10-year anniversary.
Trouble erupted last Sunday night when 700,000 people showed up for a concert by the British heavy metal group Scorpions instead of the 300,000 expected by the show's promoters. After the concert, the crowd, which was only able to return to Krakow via a limited number of buses, stormed the available transport and eventually damaged 50 public buses and five trams in Krakow.
Krzysztof Nepelski, the marketing director for RFM FM, blamed the crowd's reaction on the concert site's poor infrastructure.
"The crowd acted in an aggressive way because the only road leading to the airport was blocked (by pedestrians)," he said. "It was better to stop the buses than let them into that crowd, so people couldn't get back to Krakow."
According to Nepelski, RMF FM wasn't able to get permission from Krakow authorities to hold the concert in the more desirable Blonie, a huge open space in Krakow where Pope John Paul II has held church gatherings. "Krakow's concert had the worst location of all of this year's events," he said. "Imagine, in the city where the station was born. Next time we might as well organize the finale in Tarnow or in the Silesian region."
Anna Kozlowska, head of PR at RMF FM, wouldn't say whether the event would have any impact on future Power Invasion tours. "Tickets don't guarantee that after a concert or a football match there will be no rows," she said. "I don't know what next year's Power Invasion tour will look like yet, but if we do it we will certainly think of better safety procedures."
RFM will pay for at least some of the damage caused by the concert goers.
"We still don't have a final calculation. It is being prepared by MPK, the public transport company, but it will be more than the earlier quoted zl. 50,000," Nepelski said.
Poles busy saving for their future apartments and those building their own houses will soon have a new reference manual for how to make their homes more modern. On Sept. 15, the publisher Hachette Filipacchi Polska will launch Elle Decoration, an interior decorating bimonthly. Hachette Filipacchi Polska, established in 1994, publishes Elle, Samo Zdrowie and Film magazines. The inaugural 164-page issue of Elle Decoration will have a circulation of 65,000 and cost zl. 6.90. "We are aspiring to provide a top-shelf product," said Ewa Sieminska, managing editor of Elle Decoration. "Our slogan, 100% inspiration and 100% information, means we will provide Western designs and information on how to have what you want in Poland." The new magazine is planning to regularly feature profiles on well-known Western designers and the homes of celebrities. "We would like to match really interesting interiors with their owners, who happen to be famous," she said. "We will also provide our readers with practical information on where to buy things that would help them to create the style presented in the magazine."
With the Polish version, Elle Decoration is now available in 17 languages.
Public broadcaster Telewizja Polska (TVP) looked set to rebound from its failure to broadcast the opening of the Polish cemetery in Katyn, Russia, by televising the opening of the Polish cemetery in Miednoje last week.
The Miednoje cemetery, the burial site of 6,000 Polish officers massacred on Joseph Stalin's orders in 1940, had been scheduled to open Sept. 2 and this time TVP promised to broadcast the event. According to Pawel Sosnowski, director of TVP's press office, the station asked Russia on Aug. 4 for permission to broadcast the opening in Miednoje. "After 20 days we still didn't have their authorization and (TVP1 director Slawomir Zielinski) announced that there would be no live transmission," he said. "But luckily, one day after his declaration the Russians agreed." According to Sosnowski, the delay in garnering official consent to cover the Miednoje opening proved TVP's previous point that there had been no time to organize the broadcast from Katyn. "Please remember that we could apply to the Russians for permission only two weeks beforehand when we knew the final date of the opening," he said.
Meanwhile, the station did not broadcast last week's celebration of the 20th anniversary of the Solidarity trade union's birth in Gdansk. On July 12, Juliusz Braun, chairman of the National Television and Radio Council (KRRiTV), asked TVP's president to broadcast the event but his letter went unanswered. "It's a very important anniversary for everybody in Poland, so we prepared for it very carefully, but we decided not to broadcast it live," Sosnowski said. "From Aug. 27-Sept. 3, TVP will air dozens of hours of features and interviews about the 1980 strikes. I hope it proves how serious we are about that anniversary."
Polish sports fans will soon have a good reason to never leave the house.
Eurosportnews, a TV channel featuring only sports-related news, launched last week in Paris. On Sept. 15 the channel will be available in Polish, said Cecile Gerard, spokeswoman for Eurosport.
The 100% digital TV channel, which has a preliminary budget of FF 100 million, joins Eurosport, the pan-European channel that is available in 18 local-languages reaching more than 92 million households. In Poland, Eurosport has 2 million viewers, subscribers of digital platforms and cable networks.
"They are two completely different channels, but I would say that Eurosportnews is complementary to Eurosport," Gerard said. The new channel provides information about international sports events and is updated every 15 minutes.
"For the moment, the channel is broadcast from early morning until the early evening, but will be expanded to 24 hours a day,"Gerard said. Eurosportnews's viewers ought to prepare themselves, she said, for the channel's information-packed format. The screen is split into a number of sections including a video box, statistics box, a crawler with headlines and breaking news, and another area displaying a mixture of upcoming events, betting information and weather forecasts.
In mid-September, Radio Wama, which broadcasts in the Warminsko-Mazurskie province, will become the fourth Polish radio station to transmit its signal via Wizja TV, the digital platform owned by United Pan-Europe Communications. Wama, established in 1994, broadcasts 24 hours a day. It will join three other radio stations (Radio Zet, Radio Flash and Radio WAWa) and 50 foreign radio stations on the Wizja platform, whose programs are available digitally via the Astra satellite.
