How TVN was hardened

Press.pl | September 2, 2022

Everything is mixed up. Tomasz Lis makes a mistake in the first sentence. “We are starting with the thirty hour… the thirty hour drama of twenty German yacht passengers,” Lis reports on the rescue operation in the Baltic Sea. After the announcement, the footage with a floating sailing ship is aired. “Thursday afternoon,” says the narrator. Lis can be heard again in the background: “I am now talking to Iwona.”

It is Iwona Radziszewska, connecting live from Gdańsk. “Fifteen passengers uhm, those who disembarked in Władysławowo uhm, are now safe,” she makes mistakes all the time, looking at her notebook in the meantime. Next, news about the future prime minister, reconstruction of the Danube bridge, Andrzej Gołota and a homeless dog that terrorised the town of Solec Kujawski. They ended the news service without any further major slip-ups.

It was Friday, 3 October 1997. This is how TVN was launched. After a horrible opening, nothing heralded that the best Polish television network was being created. One of the best in Europe.

STRENGTH FROM WEAKNESS

“We received a poor licence,” says Edward Miszczak, TVN Programming Director for a quarter of a century, who knows everything about Mariusz Walter’s network. “But this has become the strength of this television network,” he adds perversely. The licensing history was like that: they started together with RTL in 1992, but the permission was granted to Polsat, Zygmunt Solorz’s network.

Marek Markiewicz, an opposition member during the communist rule, then associated with the right-wing in free Poland, was the head of the National Broadcasting Council, which granted licences. He was nominated by Lech Wałęsa to the nine-member Council, composed of representatives of all political options. Soon afterwards, the President would dismiss him from the office of the chairman (in breach of the law). For a dozen or so years, he would work for the Solorz network. He would host Bumerang, a programme on which journalists and publicists discussed the mistakes of the journalistic profession. Later, he was responsible for news and current affairs at the station. Today, he runs a law firm. I ask him about the decision he made 30 years ago. Why Solorz and not Walter? He writes back that the licence for Polsat was unanimous and his decisions were “transparent, legal and professional.”Then I ask him if his later work for the station for which he had approved the licence was not a conflict of interest. He believes that if it had been the case, he would have had to “be banned from working as a journalist in all electronic media in Poland, because they were affected by my decisions.” “Taking up work on television was my return to the profession of a journalist,” adds Markiewicz.

Four years later Walter starts the second time. Aleksander Kwaśniewski was the President, and the country was governed by the Democratic Left Alliance (SLD). In the mid-1990s, Marek Siwiec, Włodzimierz Czarzasty and Robert Kwiatkowski sat on the National Council on behalf of the Left.

People associated with TVN claim that SLD favoured Nasza TV, currently TV 4. Mariusz Walter was supposed to hear from one of the members of the Council that he had proposed “an attractive programming concept, but it is a pity that he does not have five votes.” This was the minimum number required to obtain a licence.

Siwiec remembers it differently. “The National Council was politically pluralistic,” says. “Walter opted for television produced at the highest level, elegant television. We thought that, given the rather plan reality at that time, such a station would not win audiences and would not remain alive. We did not appreciate the creativity of the team that Walter was able to put up together.”

Walter received the licence for broadcasting in northern and central Poland. “Because we wanted development of supra-regional stations that would be closer to the problems faced by residents,” explains Siwiec.

To have nationwide coverage, they bought TV Wisła, which broadcast in Kraków and covered the south of Poland, from Rzeszów to Wrocław.

“This made us focus on quality,” Miszczak summarizes. “We decided that the television viewer would find no reason to look for a new station that offered the same as the television the viewer had in their reach did. The viewers had to be given something that they did not get elsewhere.”

So they started to produce programmes themselves.

PROBABLY NOT A POLITICIAN

TVN was founded by the former agents of the communist security services. They got the money from the Foreign Debt Service Fund, the operations of which ended up as one the biggest scandals in the early days of the Polish transformation. Such a narrative is repeated by the right-wing media and the political right. Half a year ago, Dorota Kania revisited this topic again. “This television network was founded by the people linked to special services,” she said in the Holding report. The report was made by Marcin Tulicki and Samuel Pereira for TVP.

A year ago, Mariusz Walter explained that he was tired of straightening charges against him. Antoni Macierewicz was the first to accuse him of being an agent. “He lost all the court cases,” Walter recalls.

Walter, born in Lviv in 1937, started his journalistic career at a student radio centre in Gliwice. He started working for TVP during the early days of the Gierek government. During the Gierek government, he created Studio 2, the first programme on Polish television that was several hour long. In bleak Poland, Studio 2 was a new quality: live, unconventional programme with interesting guests – they even managed to get ABBA to perform live.

During the martial law, he left television. Jerzy Urban reportedly wanted Walter to lead a special unit that would run a smear campaign against Solidarity underground. “The most capable television journalist in Poland”, “a professional rather than a politician,” this is how he was supposedly described in a confidential memo to General Czesław Kiszczak, head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Neither the Ministry nor Walter bought that idea.

In the mid-1980s Walter had a business relationship with younger Jan Wejchert: both founded ITI (abbreviation of International Trading and Investment). They started with manufacturing of crisps, and obtained a licence from the communist authorities to import electronic equipment and distribute films on video cassettes.

But Walter had a dream: he once created a “window to the world” (as Studio 2 was named) on someone else’s television, now he wanted to have his own television network. In 1997, he founded TVN with a partner. “Walter knew television, and Wejchert knew business,” says a person from television world.

Wejchert died in 2009. After four years, Walter handed over the chair of the President of the Board to his son, Piotr. Board Presidents of the station changed twice.

I wanted to talk to Mariusz Walter. He is sick, and did not answer the phone.

For 18 years, the station belonged to ITI media group, then for three years to Scripps Networks Interactive, from 2018 to Discovery, and for several months now, it has belonged Warner Bros. Discovery following a merger between WarnerMedia and Discovery.

“Did you think that such a large media group would be created from a modest group at the beginning?” I ask Katarzyna Kieli, President and Managing Director of Warner Bros. Discovery in Poland and TVN CEO.

“I think that TVN’s success was the result of the extraordinary passion, courage and willingness to take risk. These features have described our station to this day.

Its founders created a completely new quality on the Polish market: the first reality show, the first daytime series or the first news service competitive with the public television monopoly. For 25 continuous years, viewers have turned on TVN for the best entertainment, news and, above all, emotions, which have accompanied television shows,” she answers.

“How do you see the future of the station?”

“The development of modern technologies has a major impact on the platform and the time when viewers want to watch their favourite programmes. We are part of these changes and have drawn conclusions from our experience in other markets. Therefore, for more than two years we have been consistently transforming TVN from a television broadcaster into a modern media group operating on all platforms and offering viewers the best programmes right where they want to watch them. As a result of the merger, Warner Bros. Discovery was formed, which means huge opportunities for our station. There is no other media group on the Polish market with brands so strong as TVN, TVN 24, HBO, CNN, Eurosport, Discovery, Player or HBO Max. And this is only the beginning of our common road and there is a lot ahead of us. But one thing is certain: we are starting a new quarter of a century stronger than ever.”

MAN IN THE SCARF

“You say: the cold atmospheric front came from Scandinavia, and we will say: the cold came from Sweden,” this is how, a quarter of a century ago, Grzegorz Miecugow explained to Marta Grzywacz of Telewizja Polska what the difference between the new television and public television would be. What he meant was that TVN would speak the language that people used every day, not the formal language used on TVP.

Miecugow is a former editorial colleague of Grzywacz: they hosted the main edition of Wiadomości together. He left the state-owned television to create Walter’s station. Just like the head of Fakty, Tomasz Lis.

Tomasz Zubilewicz became the weather presenter on TVN. He also came from public television. Zubilewicz presented weather on public television in an unconventional way: when the cold autumn came, he put on a scarf on the air. This is how Ryszard Kapuściński would remember and describe him in Lapidaria. The new station would develop a loose style of talking about weather.

Both Monika Olejnik (who interviews politicians on Kropka nad i after Fakty, since the station was launched) and Tomasz Sianecki (started as a host of Sześćset sekund życia report programme) came from Polish Radio Three. Miecugow brought them all.

“But he forgot about me,” Sianecki reproaches his former radio colleague. “I reminded him about myself and I received the offer after a few days.

He had the feeling that he “hit the wall on the radio”, where he hosted everything besides Marek Niedźwiecki’s Radio Three Chart. “And when I saw the first edition of Fakty, I almost cried bitter tears, asking myself: what did I do?” he says. “I began to regret that I moved to an unstable television network from a reliable state-owned company, such as Radio Three.”

He also had to learn the television technique. He remembers that one time, when he recorded footage, he showed a piece of field with his left hand, and then the second piece with his right hand. “Don’t wave so much cause I can’t keep up,” the cameraman scorned him. “As a radio man, I was also very talkative,” he remembers his old mistakes. He did not leave the radio for very long: he hosted his radio programmes for several years.

“This was my biggest professional challenge,” says Monika Olejnik. “We worked, with disregard for time, but with great enthusiasm and passion, but also humility. We had dreams. This gave us the strength to cross the borders of imagination and win with the stronger and more arrogant television networks,” she describes that time.

Most of the team are people from small editorial offices, who are not as recognisable as Olejnik, Lis, Miecugow, Sianecki or Zubilewicz. Tomasz Sekielski, who started his career on the Catholic Vox radio in Bydgoszcz, came to Fakty from Radio dla Ciebie.

The new station was looking for field journalists. They found Jolanta Hajdasz in Poznań, then a brilliant reporter of the TVP Poznań Branch, now a far-right activist.

POPE, FLOOD, ELECTIONS

Year 1997 was a politically hot year in Poland, and rainy one at that. In May, Poles voted in a referendum in favour of the new Constitution (the political right wanted to reject it). Pope arrived in June. In Gniezno, the Pope appealed for unity in Europe. This was an important gesture, because back then not everyone was supportive of the EU. In September, after four years of post-communist rule, the election was won by the Solidarity Electoral Action led by Marian Krzaklewski. The Action formed a coalition with the Freedom Union.

In the summer, the country was hit by the “flood of the millennium”. Odra flooded Racibórz, Opole and Wrocław. Nysa Kłodzka flooded Kłodzko and Nysa. Wisła flooded the outskirts of Kraków, and threatened the Połaniec power station, Warsaw, the Włocławek dam and the Old Town in Toruń.

 Dunajec destroyed the bridge in Kurów.

When TVN was launched, it was after the elections, but bargaining for the office of the Prime Minister was taking place.

 During the first edition of Fakty, Professor Andrzej Wiszniewski was said to have the greatest chances of taking the office. Sekielski talked to him by phone (the professor was attending a symposium in Johannesburg). Ultimately, Jerzy Buzek became the Prime Minister.

Monika Olejnik remembers the TVN’s first day well.

“From the first minute, nothing worked as we wanted. Technical problems prevented live connections, emotions were growing,” she says.

After Fakty that were full of slip-ups, Olejnik started the first Kropka nad i. She remembers Walter with Wejchert, Miszczak and Miecugow looking at her. One of them said: “Maybe we can finally pull something off today.”

Wiesław Walendziak, the then politician of the Solidarity Electoral Action, was the first guest of the programme. Olejnik interviewed Walendziak about the future Prime Minister. “My guest was one of the candidates for the office of the Prime Minister,” Olejnik recalls. She also remembers that Buzek’s candidacy was not taken into account.

“Didn’t you want to launch your television station before the elections?” I ask Miszczak.

“We did not make it,” he replies. In a few years’ time, TVN will cover another event.

DAVID AND GOLIATH

Fakty revolutionised news programmes in Poland, TVN journalists repeat.

“The revolution was based on the fact that it was the publisher and the anchor who were responsible for the news programme, as the anchor co-decided what footage would be prepared, who would prepare it and what it would look like,” explains Grzegorz Kajdanowicz. “The anchor was not merely an announcer who read announcements written by someone else.

Reporters did original materials in which they were often featured during or at the end of the report, as part of the stand-up, by summing up the report while looking at the camera. “This gave us a complete connection with the viewer. It was about recognition and trust,” says Kajdanowicz.

He draws attention to another detail: they tried to “look good and professional”. “The stylist dressed me, Tomek Sekielski and Tomek Sianecki in the same grey suits for the papal pilgrimage. We dubbed ourselves the “Sydney team”,” says Kajdanowicz.

It was about John Paul II pilgrimage to Kraków in 2002, which took place two years after the Sydney Olympics, where Polish Olympic athletes actually wore similar suits.

But the programme had a small audience. Sianecki remembers how Wiadomości cameramen chased away Fakty cameramen to have a better spot for filming. They explained: “No one watches you anyway.”

Esmeralda, a Mexican telenovela, which aired on weekdays from the end of summer of 1998 before Fakty, boosted TVN’s audience. Esmeralda was a blind girl. “It was obvious that one day she would regain sight, but we wanted it to happen as late as possible so that people would continue to watch us,” admits Sianecki. The telenovela had 135 episodes, enough for half a year. It was so popular that it was re-run in a year’s time.

Meanwhile, Fakty were still changing something. For example, it was the news service that left the studio as the first service. When Germany elected the Bundestag in 1998, Fakty aired from Berlin, overlooking the Brandenburg Gate. For the 20th anniversary of John Paul II’s pontificate, Fakty aired from Rome, and when the Pope visited Poland the last time, from Kraków. When Poland joined NATO, Fakty aired from Washington and when the Polish army took over one of the zones in Iraq, they aired from Baghdad. The Wiadomości publishers will follow the suit.

The first editions of Fakty air during Wiadomości, at 7.30 pm. After six months, they would move the air time to 7 pm.

Miszczak says that the 7.30 pm timeslot for Fakty was a “cunning move”.

“We threw ourselves like David upon Goliath,” he compared the struggle with Wiadomości. “It was obvious that we would not take over the viewers from such a giant. But, by standing up for the fight, people began to notice us. And when we were ready, we moved Fakty to 7 pm,” he explains.

Sianecki mentions how he went to briefing to the Presidential Palace on the day of the World Trade Center attack. It was a nervous time and journalists were permitted to ask only two questions. The first one was asked by Katarzyna Kolenda-Zaleska of Wiadomości, the second question was asked by Sianecki of TVN’s Fakty.

“It meant that we were to be reckoned with,” – It was a sign that we are counting – comments Sianecki.

Yet a lot of time will pass before Fakty become the leader of television news programmes in Poland. Today, more than two million viewers watch Fakty on average.

WHY DO YOU WANT IT?

It is Thursday, 9 August 2001.

“We are on the air,” young Anita Werner hears the voice in her earpiece at noon. She is surprised as no one told her that it would be that day. The news service begins with the report that senators voted over the obligation for the MPs to publish their property declarations.

This is how TVN 24 was launched, the first 24-hour news television station in Central Europe.

“Why do you want it?” people from the industry asked Walter when he set up the new channel. He had had the general channel for four years, which had just become well established.

A year ago Walter explained to me: “The footage that is shown live is something completely different from what Poles have been fed so far. So there was a reason to think that people are able to fall in love with real events.”

Not everyone was satisfied at TVN. There were voices that TVN 24 would waste money earned by ‘major’ TVN.

“I tapped my finger against my forehead as well,” Miszczak admits.

Both editorial offices did not like each other. “We looked at them from above,” Sianecki admits.

“Groundhogs” is what TVN people called those from TVN 24. “Because we had the impression that they were repeating the same all the time. Like Groundhog Day, nothing new,” says Sianecki.

The first weeks were also poor, with ratings lower than expected. Suddenly, two planes hit the World Trade Center. A nightmarish event, but drew the attention of the whole world. TVN 24 aired live coverage of the event, and the ‘major’ TVN provided its channel to TVN 24. The entire Poland watched them.

Groundhogs did not waste the money, and after two years the young station began to earn money. Olejnik and Sianecki quickly moved there.

MORE PRECISE RATINGS

Sunday 23 September 2001. In the evening, the whole Poland was back in front of the TV sets: everyone was waiting for the results of the next elections. Post-communists regained power. The Civic Platform was the second, with the Self-Defence party taking the sensational third place. Law and Justice was only fourth and the Freedom Union did not get into the Parliament.

It was also an important day for TVN. TVN was the first commercial station to organize an election evening, which until then were organized by TVP only. The evening was hosted by Olejnik and Lis.

This debut was much better than Fakty’s first edition four years earlier. Exactly at 8 pm (when voting ended), bars showing percentage support for the parties were displayed on the screen. These were poll results, but TVN presented them faster than TVP does.

These polls will turn out to be closer to the actual results than the polls presented on public television.

Lis connects with reporters who are in campaign teams. During the next live connection, Marcin Pawłowski will show an empty campaign room of the Solidarity Electoral Action: the biggest losers went home as soon as possible.

Olejnik talks with journalists and sociologists in the studio, including Janina Paradowska, Tomasz Wróblewski, Radosław Markowski and Janusz Majcherek. This evening, Olejnik will also interview prominent politicians, such as Lech Kaczyński, Marek Belka, Józef Oleksy, Jerzy Szmajdziński, Andrzej Olechowski, Roman Giertych, Aleksander Smolar and the outgoing Prime Minister Buzek.

There is a bonus at the end of the programme: Lis talks with President Kwaśniewski.

“Professional success, media success, something new,” recalls Kajdanowicz.

On that evening, he was at the campaign team of the League of Polish Families, Roman Giertych’s party, who entered the Sejm with a good result. “I interviewed Antoni Macierewicz, Jan Łopuszański and Zygmunt Wrzodak, live,” Kajdanowicz lists party leaders from Giertych’s party. “This has never happened again. They stopped talking to us.

Since then, the evening elections on TVN have been sure hits.

COOK, CLEAN, DANCE

They start with Dzień dobry TVN. The morning show airs from 8 pm to 11.30 pm, seven days a week (weekends only during the holiday season).

“This programme has brought us new viewers,” Miszczak admits.

The morning show was hosted by Kinga Rusin, Magda Mołek, Jolanta Pieńkowska, Piotr Kraśko, Bartosz Węglarczyk, Jarosław Kuźniar and Olivier Janiak. Now, the show is hosted by Anna Kalczyńska and Andrzej Sołtysik, Małgorzata Ohme and Filip Chajzer, Paulina Krupińska and Damian Michałowski, Agnieszka Woźniak-Starak and Ewa Drzyzga. Dorota Wellman and Marcin Prokop have hosted the show for the longest.

Prokop dismays the viewers from time to time like when he made a mockery of the Catholic mass. During press review, Węglarczyk found an article that an Anglican pastor was supposedly persuade the faithful to steal when they were in need.

“After all, the Church has been always saying ‘take and eat’,” Prokop blurted out. He later apologized for that, but the matter was reviewed by the Media Ethics Council.

Fakty at 7 pm. “It is still the most important programme on TVN,” says Miszczak. Uwaga! follows Fakty. Na Wspólnej airs in the evening. In a year, the network will celebrate its 20th anniversary.

Each day has its hits and stars.

MONDAY: MILIONERZY

Hubert Urbański likes to build up the tension. “Hubert, you are good at scaring people,” a young boy comments. (As usual, the host delayed the verdict so long that the participant did not know until the very end whether the answer was correct).

“I am paid for this,” replies Urbański. And he likes to egg people on.

He egged Aleksandra Burdka on so much that she lost more than two hundred thousand. She reached the half a million question that read: “Who does a lawyer have? A: mandates, B: mandants, C: mandataries, D: notaries.”

The contestant did not know the answer, but Urbański urged her three times to try to guess. She chose “C” and instead of winning a quarter of a million zlotys which she had practically already won, she left with guaranteed 40 thousand.

TUESDAY: KUBA WOJEWÓDZKI AND SUPERWIZJER INVESTIGATIVE PROGRAMME

Superwizjer reports shake Poland. Bertold Kittel revealed that Polish neo-Nazis celebrated Adolf Hitler’s birthday (they hailed and had a swastika cake). He also disclosed that the President of the Supreme Audit Office let rooms by the hour.

Grzegorz Głuszak’s report led to the release of innocent Tomasz Komenda who was convicted and did 18 years of time for crime he did not commit.

Wojciech Bojanowski publicized death of Igor Stachowiak, who was tasered at a police station in Wrocław.

Jakub Stachowiak unveiled strange connections between the former Polish Air Force Commander and a representative of the Spanish Casa company, which won a tender procedure for the purchase of aircraft for the Polish army, even though this was not the best offer.

All of these were award-winning reports.

“TVN is the best place on Polish television to deal with investigative journalism,” says Stachowiak. “It requires a lot of money and time. Not every editorial office can afford this. My station provides this. I am also comfortable that if the material I have been working on for a long time will not see the daylight because, for example, my source has pulled out, the bosses will understand it.”

Miszczak: “TVN is the only television network in Poland which is active in the field of investigative journalism.

WEDNESDAY: TOP MODEL

Hosted by Joanna Krupa and Michał Piróg. The best model is chosen by the judges. The station had to pay a fine (PLN 150,000) for one of the episodes, because the judge checked if breasts of the one of the contestants were real.

THURSDAY: KUCHENNE REWOLUCJE

“It’s dishwater, yuck!” Magda Gessler is not fond of the tomato soup. She complains about the sour rye soup (“what is this watered-down thing?”) and cabbage soup (“it stings my throat”). “This chef deserves to get punched in the head,” he says angrily.

From now on, traditional pot roast is to be the new pièce de résistance in the restaurant in Szklarska Poręba. This is more or less the case in each episode. The host becomes furious, throws the plates and swears. Then she is doing a make-over.

The Restaurant in Szklarska boasts to this day that it was made over by Gessler. The pot roast is still the pièce de résistance.

SATURDAY: MAM TALENT!

Agnieszka Chylińska, Małgorzata Foremniak and others judge the unique skills and passions of the contestants. People are emotional about the prize: the winner is to rake in 300,000 zlotys.

SUNDAY: MASTERCHEF

Anna Starmach, Magda Gessler and Michel Moran will once again select the Master Chef from among amateur cooks.

In the past, the station won viewers with shows such as Taniec z gwiazdami (13 seasons), Ewa Drzyzga’s Rozmowy w toku (where studio guests told stories from their lives, sometimes very intimate), or Perfekcyjna pani domu, where the ideal housewife, Małgorzata Rozenek, taught the contestants how to clean the house or throw a party. During the drop scene, she would put on a white glove to check the furniture for dust; the “white glove test” phrase became common after that.

The network also offers thematic channels, such as TVN Turbo, the first motoring station in Poland, TVN 7 which offers entertainment shows and television series, TVN Style and TVN Fabuła.

Miszczak: “For twenty five years we have taught viewers how to cook, clean and dance.”

ACTUAL ORWELL

Will Frytka sleep with Ken? This question was on mind of several million Poles in the spring of 2002. She was Maja Frykowska, a grand-daughter of film producer Wojciech Frykowski, murdered in the American villa of Roman Polański by the Manson cult. He is Łukasz Wiewiórski. They are both contestants on Big Brother, the first reality show on Polish television.

The programme was inspired by George Orwell’s “Nineteen Eighty-Four” about totalitarianism and mass surveillance. It turned out that not only psychopathic dictators like to watch others, but television viewers like that as well. The Dutch will be the first to check this format, followed up by half of the world.

The Polish version of Big Brother was launched in March 2001. For a few weeks, the cameras watch and listen to a dozen or so contestants who agreed to live in Big Brother’s House.

The Poles watched an adventurous intimate scene between Frytka and Ken. Both will deny that they had sex.

After the incident, the Chairman of the National Broadcasting Council accused the station of promoting “violence and immoral behaviour.” TVN was fined PLN 300,000 for the “distribution of bold erotic scenes.” After the negotiations, the fine will be halved.

Wojciech Eichelberger, a psychologist and psychotherapist, called the show “a sad spectacle about depravation of human beings.” “Twelve people are invited to compete for money and fame – in the name of which, watched by millions of viewers, they have to give up not only shame and privacy, but also loyalty and solidarity, both with respect to their brothers and sisters in misery but also with respect to their close ones left in the external, real world. The prize will go to the most cunning and ruthless one,” said Eichelberger to journalists.

The journalistic world was also disgusted. Miecugow got an earful: he has always been associated with top shelf journalism, and now he sidetracks his professional authority. Critics believe that he will lose credibility by hosting such a show.

But the show has incredible ratings: the average audience of the first season is over 4 million viewers. The final episode will be watched by 9 million viewers in March 2001. Only ski jumping competitions with Adam Małysz are watched by more Poles.

“Big Brother triggered outrage not only in Poland, but everywhere where it aired. Over time, people started to accept it and the protests died down,” explains Miszczak. “It was certainly the show that made TVN major. It also introduced democratisation into television: so far, only celebrities were on the air, here, everybody could participate.

Miecugow did not lose his credibility. On TVN 24, he will host Szkło kontaktowe and his own programme called Inny punkt widzenia about the art of life, culture and philosophy, interviewing Stanisław Lem, Władysław Bartoszewski, Krystyna Janda, Kazimierz Kutz or Robert Korzeniowski.

When he died five years ago after a severe illness, a crowd of people followed his coffin on a rainy day at Powązki military cemetery. Nobody remembered him for Big Brother any more.

HOW TO DO ENTERTAINMENT

“Entertainment drives television,” Miszczak repeated this sentence when presenting new schedules of the station.

They produce many programmes themselves. “When our station was launched, there were almost no third party producers on the Polish market,” says Jarosław Potasz, a long-time director responsible for the production of TVN programmes. Now, he will supervise production in TVN Warner Bros. Discovery.

TVN produced Big Brother along with the Dutch Endemol. Endemol is a global giant in the production of entertainment shows, and TVN set up a joint venture with Endemol. TVN bought Taniec z gwiazdami from BBC, but produced it themselves.

Potasz recalls that in the West television networks buy shows that are offered by producers. TVN works differently: they either find a suitable producer for a show, or produce it themselves.

“But when we hire someone to produce, we follow the production,” says Potasz. “This lets us have the insight into the show. We usually hire an experienced producer. We routinely deliver the set design technology.”

They claim that this ensures an appropriate level of their shows.

Potasz: “From TVN’s very beginning, Mariusz Walter always paid great attention to quality.”

WOULD WIN AGAINST KACZYŃSKI

Tomasz Lis would win the presidential election against Lech Kaczyński. This poll was ordered in January 2004 by Newsweek Polska journalists. It was ordered somewhat for fun: next autumn, Poles were to choose the successor to Kwaśniewski.

The ranking will end up badly for Lis. TVN bosses want him to declare whether he runs for the highest office in the country. They argue that the launch of a political career by a flagship journalist undermines the station’s credibility. Lis does not want to deny that he will run for the office. He became a liability with the Management Board, and so, one of the best journalists in Poland was sacked.

It was not the only high-profile departure from the station.

Kamil Durczok would leave in 2015, after Wprost weekly wrote that he was supposed to take drugs, and mob and harass his co-workers. After leaving TVN, he would not pull himself together in his professional and private life. He died from an illness in 2021. Marcin Pawłowski would leave long before. Before that, the station will give him a chance: changed beyond recognition by cancer, he would return on the air to host Fakty. He was the only Grand Press Journalist of the Year to have been awarded posthumously.

Few leave TVN of their own accord. Tomasz Sekielski (worked for TVN for 15 years) will move to public television, work with Wprost, Tok FM, Nowa TV and Wirtualna Polska. After all, he will set up his own YouTube channel and, along with his brother Marek, will produce high-profile reports on paedophile scandals in the Polish Church. Since July, he has been Newsweek Polska’s editor-in-chief.

Other people who have left TVN include Adam Pieczyński, one of the most important people in Walter’s network, the former head of TVN 24 and Fakty, and his wife Justyna Pochanke, one of the most important anchors in the history of Fakty. Edward Miszczak has also recently left TVN, for Polsat. He will be replaced by Lidia Kazen.

BIDEN IS INTERESTED

The year is 2015, just as abundant with events as the year TVN was launched.

Andrzej Duda wins presidential election, while Law and Justice wins parliamentary election. The winning party staffs public media with its people. Jacek Kurski becomes TVP president: when Tusk ran for presidency against Lech Kaczyński years ago, Kurski threatened Poles that the Civic Platform leader had a grandfather in Wehrmacht.

TVP Info and Wiadomości become Law and Justice propaganda mouthpieces. During opposition demonstrations in defence of the Constitutional Tribunal and independent courts, people bring banners reading “TVP lies”.

TVN’s commercial success gains significance, in particular TVN 24 news channel. “We have been aware from the start that we have consistently and responsibly co-created more than a television network with our ambitious work – we co-created democracy!” says Monika Olejnik.

She would prove this during the tape scandal when Internal Security Agency officers raided Wprost editorial office. “The entire journalistic community is against you,” Olejnik threw at the then Prime Minister, Donald Tusk.

The current government is irritated by the station’s independence. A year ago, the Sejm majority amended the media act, which provides that companies established in Poland “cannot be controlled by entities from outside the European Economic Area.” Yet TVN is owned by the Americans.

In response, Andrzej Pągowski paints a poster: the “V” in the TVN logo looks like two fingers spread into a victory sign. Thousands of people take it to the streets. “The authorities want to shut down independent media, because they realize that the truth is their most dangerous enemy,” Tusk speaks out at the Warsaw rally. American congressmen are protesting, and President Joe Biden is interested in the matter. Andrzej Duda did not sign the act, and TVN 24 broadcasts as before.

This is not the end of the trouble. The National Council delays with renewal of the licence for TVN 7 – finally the licence was renewed after a year of waiting.

In June, more than two million households lose access to TVN. This is because of the technological changes in the broadcasting system. However, the new standards apply to private networks only, public television can continue to broadcast in the old way. Viewers of terrestrial television who own old TV sets, who will not change their sets or will not buy set-top boxes, can only watch TVP.

“We are protesting against unfair actions that have deprived a large part of terrestrial television viewers of the access to their favourite channels and have been discriminatory against all commercial broadcasters, by favouring public television,” TVN, Polsat, TV Puls and Kino Polska appealed jointly.

“Law and Justice wants to limit citizens’ access to the media because it intends to run an unfair election campaign,” commented Jan Grabiec, a spokesman for the Civic Platform.

TWO POLLS

22 July this year. Friday.

There are two events of the day: the Act on the Coal Allowance and Kantar public poll, where the Civic Platform wins against the Law and Justice for the first time since 2015.

7 pm. I turn on Fakty.

The news service begins with a headline on the coal allowance: three thousand zlotys for those who use coal for heating. The opposition points out that the subsidies will be granted to owners of coal furnaces only. What about those who resigned from coal and invested in better furnaces, ask the politicians.

“Law and Justice would not win the parliamentary election today,” Grzegorz Kajdanowicz announces the second headline.

Kantar polls for Gazeta Wyborcza show 27% support for Civic Coalition, and 26% for Law and Justice. It is a difference within the limits of a statistical error, but it is a breakthrough difference: this is the first such a poll for seven years where the Tusk party wins against the Kaczyński party.

Half an hour later, I switch to Wiadomości.

“Opposition against helping Poles with buying coal,” Michał Adamczyk announces the headline news with a gloomy face. The report does not mention what the opposition does not like in the act of law or why it was against the act.

I am waiting for the poll. But the second headline is Russia’s unblocking of Ukrainian grain transports (which is actually important). Well, they must show the poll now. No way. More headlines follow: Duda formally signs the consent for Sweden and Finland to join NATO, the food crisis in Lebanon, correspondence from Ukraine, purchase of tanks from South Korea, election of new members of the National Media Council, fertiliser subsidies.

Finally, there is the poll (it is the ninth headline). Alas it is not the Kantar poll, but a poll ordered by the right-wing wPolityce.pl. Law and Justice is still the leader in that poll with 39%, 12 points ahead of the Civic Coalition. “Law and Justice enjoys a very high level of support,” Michał Adamczyk tells the Poles.

Viewers of Wiadomości will never learn about the fact that Tusk can win again against Kaczyński.