Sowa speaks of private sector opportunity
Sowa is Vice-President of United Pan Europe Communications and a board member of the Polish Association of Private Media and Advertising Employers as well as the American Chamber of Commerce in Poland. Through his simultaneous membership of American and Polish institutions, he is able to place Polish media reform in the limelight of initiatives for boosting U.S. investment in Poland.
"[The new media bill] is one of the key legislative acts that will shape the environment in which media companies operate," says Sowa. "Before, the private sector may have only been paid lip service by the lawmakers in drawing up the act. The fact that private sector media is speaking to law-makers with one voice may be one of the positive outcomes of the Rywingate affair."
Core changes to the draft media bill will take place over the next few weeks and, in so doing, will re-ignite a debate that was left unfinished as the consequences of the Rywin scandal accumulated last year.
EU accession will require a degree of reform that brings Poland's media law into line with its neighbors. But this also raises one of the most controversial issues, the tabled 49 percent maximum for non-EU investment into Poland's electronic media companies. At a time when the administration is trying to bring U.S. FDI up to French and German levels, Sowa argues that the implementation of the '49 percent quota' would be a bad signal to send the American business community.
Instead, Sowa calls for, "A sound analysis of the media market today and a prognosis for post-accession development" that would provide a basis for discussions concerning the bill. "It is bound to be a better law if it's based on rational economic arguments," says Sowa, "rather than on personal views of politicians."
State television broadcaster TVP, currently undergoing a change of management, a process again tainted by the pervasive Rywin trial, is also in Sowa's sights. The role of public media as a counter-balance to the State rather than an adjunct of it, as so vividly illustrated by last week's events in Britain, will also be defined by the new act.
"We expect a clear definition of what constitutes the mission of public media and to what extent they should participate in the advertising market," says Sowa. He suggests that a more efficient way of collecting the license fee could compensate for the public media's loss of advertising revenue. Sowa is angry that TVP has a privileged position of "...generating revenues both from public funds and from the commercial market."
In this scenario, the new law's adjustment to the way in which public media makes its money would have important ethical results. There should be "fair competition between the private and the public sector" which is the result of the upholding of ideals of "pluralism and freedom of speech" due to a "renewed focus on the market as the best regulator."
Wojciech Dziomdziora of the Department of Film and Audio-Visual Media at the Ministry of Culture, says that many of the private sector's wishes are indeed being put into practice in the drafting process of the bill, in a seemingly unprecedented example of open legislative procedure. "One of the main rules for the government's work on the media bill is its transparency," says Dziomdziora. "Private media is and will be consulted at all stages of the legislative process." All versions of the draft are to be published and available for public scrutiny and comment.
"[The new media bill] is one of the key legislative acts that will shape the environment in which media companies operate," says Sowa. "Before, the private sector may have only been paid lip service by the lawmakers in drawing up the act. The fact that private sector media is speaking to law-makers with one voice may be one of the positive outcomes of the Rywingate affair."
Core changes to the draft media bill will take place over the next few weeks and, in so doing, will re-ignite a debate that was left unfinished as the consequences of the Rywin scandal accumulated last year.
EU accession will require a degree of reform that brings Poland's media law into line with its neighbors. But this also raises one of the most controversial issues, the tabled 49 percent maximum for non-EU investment into Poland's electronic media companies. At a time when the administration is trying to bring U.S. FDI up to French and German levels, Sowa argues that the implementation of the '49 percent quota' would be a bad signal to send the American business community.
Instead, Sowa calls for, "A sound analysis of the media market today and a prognosis for post-accession development" that would provide a basis for discussions concerning the bill. "It is bound to be a better law if it's based on rational economic arguments," says Sowa, "rather than on personal views of politicians."
State television broadcaster TVP, currently undergoing a change of management, a process again tainted by the pervasive Rywin trial, is also in Sowa's sights. The role of public media as a counter-balance to the State rather than an adjunct of it, as so vividly illustrated by last week's events in Britain, will also be defined by the new act.
"We expect a clear definition of what constitutes the mission of public media and to what extent they should participate in the advertising market," says Sowa. He suggests that a more efficient way of collecting the license fee could compensate for the public media's loss of advertising revenue. Sowa is angry that TVP has a privileged position of "...generating revenues both from public funds and from the commercial market."
In this scenario, the new law's adjustment to the way in which public media makes its money would have important ethical results. There should be "fair competition between the private and the public sector" which is the result of the upholding of ideals of "pluralism and freedom of speech" due to a "renewed focus on the market as the best regulator."
Wojciech Dziomdziora of the Department of Film and Audio-Visual Media at the Ministry of Culture, says that many of the private sector's wishes are indeed being put into practice in the drafting process of the bill, in a seemingly unprecedented example of open legislative procedure. "One of the main rules for the government's work on the media bill is its transparency," says Dziomdziora. "Private media is and will be consulted at all stages of the legislative process." All versions of the draft are to be published and available for public scrutiny and comment.
