Second digital platform still needs Competition OK to form

The PPC must first receive clearance from the Consumer and Competition Protection Office (UOKiK) before incorporating. Although this is usually just a technicality, it will be a time-consuming process for the five shareholders that want to take part in the company.
"We have to first agree that there is no danger of monopolistic practices; only then the company may legally incorporate," said Iwona Zaczek, UOKiK public relations manager. "In the case of so many shareholders the entire process may take up to two months."
The parties involved in the creation of the platform, Telewizja Polska (TVP), Canal+ Polska, Polsat, Aster City Cable and Nasza TV, said they were keeping in touch with the office and have already notified it about the planned consortium. However, they are still compiling the necessary documentation required by the office.
Piotr Kryczek, legal director of Canal+ Polska, the station that is a driving force behind the future company, was not able to say if all documents will be filed by the end of the year.
While the lack of a go-ahead from the UOKiK does not mean the future consortium may not broadcast its test signal, it is more red tape that keeps the company from focusing on competition with rival Wizja TV, which is owned by @Entertainment. Wizja has now sold 91,000 Philips-made satellite sets needed to get Wizja programming straight from two Astra satellites.
In addition, Wizja may further tangle PPC's birth pains. The company said last week that it was considering taking legal steps against its rival-to-be on unfair competition grounds.
"As far as we see it, we have legal grounds to do so," said Przemyslaw Szmyt, deputy president of @Entertainment. "But right now we are just considering such an option."
According to the company's legal adviser, Wlodzimierz Glowacki, representatives of companies behind the PPC consortium on several occasions have publicly said that Wizja was operating illegally, harming the company's image as a result.
"It is particularly dangerous as (the companies behind the project) form almost a media cartel and can easily distribute those opinions via media they own," he added.
Wizja TV is broadcast to Poland from a U.K.-based uplink operating under a local license issued by the Independent Television Commission (ITC) and the Poland-ratified Cross-border Television Convention.
"There is not the slightest doubt that we are a legal broadcaster," said Szmyt. "And we have not come from nowhere, we're the largest media investor here, and one of the first foreign investors in the country."
@Entertainment, which operates the largest cable television network here, Polska Telewizja Kablowa (PTK) with some 887,000 subscribers, has so far invested about $250 million in the cable network. It has also plowed about $158 million into Wizja.
With $75.72 million in red ink at the end of September, the company does not expect to report a profit before 2003 or a year after that, Szmyt said. Sometime around Easter 2000 it also plans to break cash-positive with 500,000 DTH sets sold.