Świrski: KRRiT concerned about reports of TVN owner’s connections

By wirtualnemedia.pl | 15 June 2023

Members of the National Broadcasting Council are not getting information from TVN about its ownership structure, KRRiT Chairman Maciej Świrski argued in the Sejm on Wednesday. This is expected to have an impact on issues of prolonged reconcession processes for TVN channels, while Polsat received a license very quickly. The Council members are also being approached by alleged “media reports about ties to Russia of companies in the broadcaster’s ownership consortium.” The conglomerate Warner Bros. Discovery actually broadcast its international stations in Russia, but left the country last year.

Maciej Swirski appeared before the parliamentary committee on culture and media yesterday on a summons formulated by MP Joanna Scheuring-Wielgus. He referred, among other things, to the punishment and reconcession of Radio TOK FM, but it also took him quite a while to explain why it took so long to grant a concession extension for TVN’s HGTV channel (the station applied for a new concession last June, but got it in April this year), but most importantly, why the KRRiT is not considering the application for a reconcession already submitted for the main channel, TVN. Its license will expire in April 2024.

According to the chairman, the delay is blamed on the station itself, or more precisely, on its failure to disclose its ownership structure. Responding to a question about why Polsat channels are receiving license extensions faster than TVN channels, Maciej Swirski said:

“There is a difference that can be seen during the concession proceedings. Well, Polsat is owned by Cyfrowy Polsat, which is a listed company, and on the stock market there are rules of transparency and any concealment of information is punished. Therefore, it is perfectly clear who manages the company, who is the ultimate beneficiary, what the revenues are and so on. TVN, on the other hand, when it sends letters to the regulator about its ownership structure it labels them “company secret.” That is, it does not want the public to know who the ultimate beneficiary really is, what the ownership structure is over the TVN company, who it depends on.

“Disturbing information is reaching us.”

Maciej Swirski, however, overlooked the fact that Warner Bros. Discovery is also a publicly traded company, except that it is on the American stock exchange. Instead, he stressed that the state body had approached TVN, asking who owns and manages the entire chain of companies between TVN in Poland and Warner Bros. Discovery in the United States.

“TVN has refused to provide this information. Meanwhile, there are disturbing media reports coming to us about the Russian ties of the companies in the TVN ownership consortium. This has raised our great concern. That is why the investigation is taking a long time. because TVN has refused to provide information. I sent a demand to TVN’s board of directors to disclose who is in the structure. They sent a rather brazen response. We are now checking who is who and what the connections are,” said Maciej Swirski, stressing that another demand to “disclose the ownership structure” was sent on Wednesday.

Speaking of “media reports” about ties to Russia, the head of the regulator mentioned a May text on the subject on I.pl. The point was that in Russia, Discovery and Turner Broadcasting System (owned by WarnerMedia) channels were distributed by a company called Media Alliance. It’s a joint venture in which Discovery, TV and telecommunications operator Viasat and Russian holding company Natsionalnaya Media Gruppa (National Media Group), which is the broadcaster of, among others, the pro-Kremlin Perviy Kanal, were partners. Media Alliance has existed since 2015 and was established to distribute Discovery channels (including Discovery Channel, TLC and HGTV) in Russia. It also has nothing to do with TVN and was established three years before TVN became part of Discovery.

The company went into liquidation this spring. The reason? The conglomerate Warner Bros. Discovery decided to withdraw from Russia after that country’s attack on Ukraine. That’s why Discovery’s channels stopped broadcasting in the country as early as March 2022.

We asked TVN for a position on Maciej Swirski’s words, but so far have received no response.

What was it like with the concession for HGTV?

The TVN-owned HGTV station only got its license renewed for another 10 years at the end of April this year, after a ten-month wait. While granting the broadcasting rights, the KRRiT stressed that it was still analyzing the ownership structure of the channel’s broadcaster. It also stressed that TVN, as of April 8, 2022, is owned by US-based Warner Bros. Discovery, formed by the merger of WarnerMedia and Discovery. It was explained that “the proceedings conducted in this case (structure – JK) are aimed at investigating the compliance of TVN S.A.’s capital composition with the provisions of the media law.”

The broadcaster waited 19 months for a license for TVN24. It was granted in September 2021, but the regulator, in a resolution, assessed that the channel should not get it, and expressed the need for new regulations and a Constitutional Court ruling on the matter.

The TVN Group has been in American hands since mid-2015, when it was acquired by Scripps Networks Interactive, which was taken over by the Discovery conglomerate three years later. In contrast, this spring. Discovery finalized its $40 billion acquisition of WarnerMedia from telecom conglomerate AT&T. For years, TVN’s direct owner was Polish Television Holding, registered in Amsterdam. Since the middle of last year, the broadcaster has been owned by Discovery Communications Benelux.