TVN Complains to the Court about the Inaction of the KRRiT

 

By Jacek Kowalski, 5 October 2023 | wirtualnemedia.pl

Despite the passage of almost a year and repeated attempts to interest KRRiT members, the National Council has so far failed to address the renewal of the TVN station’s license. As Wirtualnemedia.pl has determined, in connection with such proceedings, the broadcaster has filed a complaint with the Regional Administrative Court against the regulator’s inaction.

TVN has already been waiting for an extension of the broadcasting license for its main channel for more than ten months. The current concession expires in April 2024, with other channels TVN International (end of broadcasting rights: February 10 next year), waiting in line. TVN Turbo (concession until April 12, 2024, and TVN Style (concession until July 28, 2024). The company is seeking to extend the broadcasting rights of these channels for another 10 years, while the applications (according to the regulations) were submitted more than a year before the expiration of the concession.

The issue of TVN’s reconcession has already been allowed to stand at the National Broadcasting Council several times: “I have been requesting that the issue be addressed for several sittings, but each time the council rejects my request without giving reasons,” Council member Professor Tadeusz Kowalski tells Wirtualnemedia.pl. “This was also the case during the last meeting, on October 3,” adds our interlocutor.

Back in July this year, TVN SA told us that the concession issue for TVN should end quickly. – We submitted an application to extend the TVN channel’s license last November, so we have been waiting for the KRRiT’s decision on the matter for more than seven months. We believe it will happen immediately,” Katarzyna Issat, head of corporate communications for TVN Warner Bros. told Wirtualnemedia.pl at the time. Discovery. However, this has not happened, and the unclear ownership structure of the broadcaster is said to be standing in the way, according to Maciej Swirski. Prof. Kowalski retorts: “The broadcaster has already met all the conditions, and has also submitted financial statements to us.”

There is a complaint about the KRRiT’s inaction

As determined by the Wirtualnemedia.pl portal, in September this year. TVN SA filed a complaint with the Voivodship Administrative Court in Warsaw regarding “the inaction or protracted conduct of proceedings by the KRRiT concerning the application for a license to distribute by digital terrestrial broadcasting in multiplex two a universal television program for another 10-year period.”

“The case will be heard in closed session under a simplified procedure. However, no date for the hearing has been set as of today,” Dominik Niewirowski, deputy head of the secretariat of the Judicial Information Department of the WSA in Warsaw said. The station is not commenting on the case.

This is the broadcaster’s third complaint about the KRRiT’s tardiness. Prof. Tadeusz Kowalski says: – This is a very interesting case, it is not impossible that the WSA will find that the KRRiT is acting under conditions of recidivism.

This is another complaint about tardiness

The first complaint went to the WSA in the fall of 2021, when the reconcession of the TVN24 channel was being prolonged. At the time, TVN pointed out that the KRRiT proceedings were record lengthy. – The proceedings to extend TVN24’s license lasted more than 19 months, there was no legal or formal justification for such an unprecedented delay, TVN’s Katarzyna Issat told us at the time.

Finally, it was only in January this year that the court proceedings ended: the NSA upheld the cassation complaint of the former head of the National Broadcasting Council, Witold Kolodziejski. TVN24 was not granted a license extension until September 2021.

The second of the complaints came before the court in the fall of 2022, this time concerning the reconcession of the TVN 7 channel. In September 2022, the WSA ruled that the KRRiT had shown inaction in the case, having “the character of a gross violation of the law.” The National Council was also ordered to reimburse TVN for its legal costs of PLN 597. The current chairman of the regulator, Maciej Swirski, filed a cassation complaint, but that was dismissed this spring. The process of extending the broadcasting rights for the channel for another 10 years took more than a year, during which time the regulator voted on the matter several times – always without success.

TVN on the target of the KRRiT

The KRRiT is currently conducting several proceedings against TVN. At the end of December last year, KRRiT chairman Maciej Swirski initiated proceedings to punish TVN for airing the reportage “The Power of a Lie” by Piotr Swierczek, devoted to the investigation of the Smolensk catastrophe by Antoni Macierewicz’s commission.

In April, proceedings were launched over statements made by Professor Barbara Engelking in Monica Olejnik’s “Dot over i” on TVN24. In June, in turn, the chairman of the National Broadcasting Council initiated administrative proceedings over an edition of “Contact Glass” on TVN24, in which co-host Krzysztof Daukszewicz made a transphobic comment against Piotr Jacoń. Another investigative proceeding relates to the publication about Ms. Joanna from Krakow, who was hospitalized after a pregnancy termination procedure.