TV Polonia locked out of South America for now
Ethnic Poles in Brazil are having problems with their TV stations they can't access any Polish language channels.
Poles make up a sizeable ethnic group in Brazil with 1.5 million Brazilians estimated to be of Polish origin. Some 300,000 native Poles live in Curitiba city alone. But according to Marek Makowski, the Polish consul general in the city, Poles and Ukrainians are the only two ethnic groups in Brazil that don't have access to programs in their native languages. And it's likely to stay that way for the next 20 years.
TV Polonia, a satellite program set up in 1993 for Polish communities worldwide, is transmitted everywhere in the world except South America.
"It's the last generation that speaks some Polish," Makowski said. Brazil's Polonia was established by Polish farmers who settled there at the beginning of the 20th century. "Unlike Polish emigrants to the U.S., Poles who came to Brazil remained farmers," Makowski said. "And agriculture in Brazil is in a permanent crisis. Polonia is very poor."
Makowski said a station broadcasting in Polish could help preserve the roots of the Polish community. But the distribution of TV Polonia's signal depends on a contract signed with the Canada-based Spanski Enterprises (SEI) in 1994, which gives the company exclusive rights to distribute TV Polonia's signal throughout North and South America for 25 years.
TV Polonia, whose operations cost zl. 75 million-zl. 78 million ($16.3 million-$16.9 million) a year, is mostly financed by public broadcaster Telewizja Polska (TVP), the Senate and the Foreign Affairs Ministry. TV Polonia's lineup includes its own productions and retransmissions of TVP. TVP is also partly financed from monthly viewer contributions of zl. 11.50. According to TVP's management, the station cannot afford to pay for TV Polonia's worldwide distribution and therefore has to look for outside partners to cover most of the costs.
Jan Sek, vice chairman of the National Television and Radio Council (KRRiTV), Poland's media watchdog, said that Boguslaw Spanski, a Polish emigrant to Canada who owns SEI, is something of an unknown quantity. "He sponsored the publication of a book on Stan Tyminski (an unknown presidential candidate who unexpectedly won the primaries along with Tadeusz Mazowiecki in 1990)," Sek said.
Spanski failed to win viewers for TV Polonia in the United States and Canada, where SEI estimates it has only 16,000 subscribers, so he turned his attentions south, according to TVP. "He calculated that the distribution of TV Polonia's signal will cost $3 million (in South America), while South-American Polish emigrants said it would be $300,000," said Janusz Cieliszak, press spokesman for TVP. "Representatives of South-American Polonia were furious and sent letters to TVP, the Sejm and the Senate asking why the public TV station's signal was given to private hands."
According to consul-general Makowski, Polish Brazilians cannot afford a monthly fee of $50 for one program and another $400 for a decoder. "And this is Spanski's most recent offer," Makowski said. "People here can't even pay $1 they are too poor. What they could accept is for TV Polonia to be included in cable packages they are already paying for." But when TVP transmits TV Polonia's signal it is unable to omit SEI as a distributor, unless it is prepared to break the contract.
The Supreme Office of Inspection (NIK) said in its November report issued after investigating the issue that withdrawing from the contract is a possible way out for TVP. But Cieliszak denied that option. "TVP will not break the contract," he said. "The agreement is designed in such a way that according to TVP's lawyers breaking it would cost TVP millions of dollars."
At the same time, Cieliszak said that Spanski's company was the only one to offer to cover the costs of creating the necessary infrastructure to distribute TV Polonia. "It doesn't cost anything, we only send the signal to the satellite," Cieliszak said. He said Spanski invested an unknown amount in the distribution of TV Polonia and is paying royalties to TVP on time. "It's ridiculous money but he does pay," Cieliszak said.
But an industry source said any other intermediary would be cheaper. "And considering all the new ways of communication, one can't understand why TVP signed a contract for 25 years," the source said. "Unfortunately, the Internet, which could be one way to deal with the problem under the agreement signed by TVP this year with Spanski, is also in the contract."
Cieliszak wouldn't comment on any possible solutions. "We (TVP) are now waiting for the KRRiTV to advise us," he said. "It's up to the government and KRRiTV to decide. We will accept every decision provided we get financial guarantees from the government."
