The high cost of good media
The draft bill on the protection of minors against harmful content of mass media obliges television and radio stations, press publishers and advertising companies to classify their products and label them in line with the directives of the new Center for Good Media.
According to different estimates, the operations of the center will cost some zł.2 million annually and a big company such as Empik could be forced to spend zł.200 million just to submit information to the central register about the products it wants to sell.
Each company concerned by the bill will have to place special stickers on their products defining the age from which they can be viewed. The draft bill has been strongly criticized by entrepreneurs.
"The draft bill limits the freedom of business activity by imposing on entrepreneurs a number of new, important obligations. The implementation of part of the bill's provisions can put businesspeople at risk of financial losses and harm the media market," stated the Chamber of Press Publishers (IWP) in an official communique. IWP addressed the bill's authors and asked them not to pass the draft in the current form.
"We are aware of technical difficulties related to the act's introduction," Tadeusz Cymański, a Law and Justice Deputy who is behind the creation of the bill, told Rzeczpospolita. "Solutions are not available yet," he added.
