Majority at KRRiT Still Unwilling to Take Up TVN License Renewal Case

By Michał Niedbalski, press.pl | 24 August 2023

At Wednesday’s meeting, the National Broadcasting Council again failed to address the issue of extending the TVN license. This topic was requested by KRRiT member Prof. Tadeusz Kowalski.

Prof. Tadeusz Kowalski wanted Wednesday’s meeting to address the issues of the reconcession of TVN SA’s three channels: TVN, TVN International and TVN Turbo. Both at the end of July and now, as a result of objections from the four other members of the National Broadcasting Council, his request in this regard was not considered.

Kowalski was appointed to the National Council by the votes of opposition senators. The other members (they are Maciej Świrski, Hanna Karp, Agnieszka Glapiak and Marzena Paczuska) were appointed by the Sejm, in which PiS has a majority, or President Andrzej Duda, who derives from that party.

At both meetings, both now and at the end of July, Prof. Kowalski submitted written statements for the minutes containing arguments in favor of the KRRiT urgently adopting a resolution to extend the TVN company’s license. “The applications submitted by the company (TVN, TVN International, TVN Turbo) after nearly nine months have not been considered, despite the absence of grounds for possible denial of the license,” the statement said. As he added, TVN’s program monitoring conducted from January 16-22, 2023, showed that the station’s program is in line with the provisions of the license.

According to Kowalski, the circumstances for not granting the request cannot be the issues of the ownership structure of the TVN company. Among others, the Chairman of the National Broadcasting Council, Maciej Świrski, points out the doubts in this matter.

“In my opinion, the Chairman’s actions on the issue of examining the ownership structure are of a sham nature, and their real purpose is to delay the decision on the reconcession. They are also an example of unequal treatment of entities,” Kowalski stated. He added that he would request immediate reconcession decisions for TVN at each subsequent meeting.

The KRRiT is scheduled to hold its next regular meeting in mid-September.

TVN SA applied to the KRRiT for an extension of its terrestrial TVN license (which expires on April 14, 2024) in late 2022. In early 2023, the broadcaster made identical requests for TVN International (it has a license until February 10, 2024) and TVN Turbo (until February 12, 2024).

It took the previous National Council 19 months to extend the license for TVN 24 (the KRRiT took a decision on the matter four days before the expiration of the broadcasting rights), and more than a year for TVN Seven.