Wasacz pushes for control of TVP board member salaries
Judgment day is coming for some highly paid managing board members of about 300 treasury-owned companies, including Telewizja Polska (TVP) and Polish Radio (PR), if Treasury Minister Emil Wasacz has his way.
Wasacz wants to remove the companies' respective supervisory-board authority to negotiate salaries and contracts with members of their management boards. The responsibility would be shifted to shareholders that is, to the Treasury Ministry. In practice, this means that the minister, as titular owner of TVP, for instance, would decide how much managing board members in treasury-owned companies will be paid.
Wasacz's move came unexpectedly after the dismissal of two Polskie Radio managing board members affiliated with the Peasants Party (PSL), PR President Stanislaw Popiolek and his deputy Henryk Cichecki. According to daily newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza, these men received exorbitant severance packages of nearly zl. 500,000 each, despite the state radio network operating in serious debt. PR's supervisory board wouldn't confirm this information or disclose any other details of the contracts in question. However, the board did suddenly cut severance packages and Cichecki decided to forgo his.
Under the current system the supervisory boards of the public broadcasting companies elect members to their respective managing boards and negotiate member contracts. When dismissed before their terms expire, both PR and TVP managing board members receive wages and severance pay in amounts that are kept quiet from the public. Wasacz has until now been unable to intervene against such practices, despite being the companies' sole shareholder.
The current TVP supervisory board was elected by the National Television and Radio Council (KRRiTV) when the council was dominated by members affiliated with the Democratic Left Alliance (SLD) and PSL, parties now in parliamentary opposition. The controversial contracts with Popiolek and Cichecki were signed in 1998 when PR's supervisory board was headed by Wlodzimierz Czarzasty, affiliated with SLD and currently on the KRRiTV.
"It's a good lesson that the KRRiTV has learned," said Jaroslaw Sellin, a member of the KRRiTV delegated by Solidarity Election Action (AWS). "In the future, the council should choose only professionals without considering political affiliations."
But according to Juliusz Braun, head of the KRRiTV, the rights of supervisory boards of the public media companies are defined by a law aimed at making public media independent of government. "(TVP's and PR's supervisory boards) losing the right to employ members of their managing boards would be in conflict with the spirit of the media law," Braun said. The media law would have to be changed, according to Braun, if Wasacz's decision (announced in a Jan. 13 statement) are to take effect, "Not only changes in companies' statutes," he added.
Radio Flash has become the first regional radio broadcaster to be included in the Wizja TV digital platform. Since Jan. 3, its signal has been available both digitally and through Astra satellite, expanding its reach significantly.
According to Radio Flash's advertising campaign, the move will make its signal available to 38 million Poles and 728 million other Europeans. Until now, via five terrestrial transmitters Radio Flash's signal has covered an area of 8 million residents in southern Poland. The switch to satellite broadcasting enables Radio Flash to reach many former residents of Silesia who moved to Germany during the communist era. "I already receive grateful calls from Germany and Austria, from people who discovered they can listen to us via satellite," said Stanislaw Soltysik, head of Radio Flash.
Soltysik said that widening the broadcaster's reach and improving its signal was worth the "several-hundred-thousand zloty" that he had to pay for the new equipment. He wouldn't disclose, however, how much Radio Flash pays to beam its signal via satellite to Wizja TV's headquarters in London.
In making the move, the regional broadcaster followed two of Poland's national radio giants. Last November RMF FM and Radio Zet joined the Wizja TV digital platform, owned by United Pan-Europe Communications and Cyfra+, backed by Canal+ Polska. "Broadcasters that want to compete on the (Polish) market have to follow their European counterparts by mastering sound quality and switching to satellite broadcasting," Soltysik said. "What we and radio Zet and RMF FM did, others will do sooner or later."
According to Soltysik, the switch to digital and satellite broadcasting was not aimed at expanding the station's activities and eventually becoming a national broadcaster. "We want to be a regional station that will distinctly differ from national commercial broadcasters. Regional information will always be our priority," he said.
Radio Flash was the first regional, commercial radio station established in Upper Silesia. It started broadcasting in 1992 - two years before it received a concession from the KRRiTV. It has covered the Slaskie, Malopolskie and Opolskie provinces and has an 18-20% share of its regional market, according to OBOP. Flash can also be heard by Poles around the world on the internet at www.flash.com.pl
Cracks in the image of the Democratic Left Alliance (SLD) a party that never reveals its internal conflicts to the media evidently do exist. Last week, Janusz Rolicki was sacked as editor in chief of Trybuna, a daily representing the political left. He was replaced by Andrzej Urbanczyk, SLD's press spokesman. According to Rolicki, who spoke, strangely enough, to Roman Catholic Radio Plus the day after the firing, the person responsible for dismissing him was Leszek Miller, SLD's leader. Observers of Poland's political scene argue that SLD is preparing for presidential elections and that's why it had to get rid of Rolicki, who had been criticizing the party for lacking any real leftist program. Rolicki, who for the last two years was trying to build a positive image of the communist era, told Radio Plus that he had survived as editor in chief since 1997 thanks to President Aleksander Kwasniewski's support.
Advertising Agency Leo Burnett mopped up trophies at the fifth annual Kreatura awards ceremony held Friday, Jan. 14, at Centrum Targowe Mokotow.
The agency won awards in an array of categories, including service companies, automotive ads, best campaign, technical and promotional materials. All media were represented press, outdoor, television, radio, film and point of sale. Leo Burnett also took home the ceremony's main award, the Grand Prix, for its "Goldfish" television spot. The advertisement was a charity project done for relief organization Polska Akcja Humanitarna. It shows a goldfish out of the water to demonstrate the suffering and confusion of refugees.
However, according to Damir Brajdic, a member of the 13-person jury for the awards and creative director at advertising agency Czajkowski & Brajdic, there was disagreement as to whether a television announcement for a non-profit organization should have been allowed to win the Grand Prix award. Next year a separate category will likely be created for non-profit agencies.
Advertising agency Corporate Profiles DDB left with awards for a television advertisement of Tyskie beer, in the beverages category, a radio ad for Geant hypermarkets, in the services category, and an award for directional posters. Saatchi & Saatchi won two awards in the advertising campaign category, one for best advertisement the Toyota Corolla and one for best overall campaign also for the Toyota Corolla.
The ceremony gives awards for creative work and was initially formed in response to the lack of recognition for creativity in the advertising industry. "Kreatura basically formed out of that frustration," Brajdic said.
Chris Rivituso contributed to this
article.
