Polish Public Broadcaster TVP Overhaul Sparks Protests and Political Turmoil

PiS politicians spent the night in protest at the headquarters of the public broadcaster TVP.Image ANP / EPA

Suddenly the signal from TVP, the Polish public broadcaster, went out on Wednesday morning. The logo appears on the screen. Later, one of the most important national television channels switches to a nature documentary featuring, among other things, hungry polar bears. Behind the scenes, rapid change was taking place in Polish society. The new Tusk government fired the broadcaster’s bosses on Wednesday, the new management stood with the police on the doorstep of the headquarters, where the parliamentarians of the previous ruling party PiS have barricaded themselves in protest.

Anyone who zapped to the channels of public broadcaster TVP in recent years ended up through the viewing tube in the universe of the political party Law and Justice (PiS). In the news, Poland was attacked by Brussels, Berlin, illegal migration and ‘LGBTI ideology’. Opposition leader Donald Tusk, now returned as Prime Minister, was depicted as the devil, sometimes literally: a red glow was often placed around his person. TVP reported nothing but good things about the PiS government.

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Arnout le Clercq is Central and Eastern Europe correspondent for de Volkskrant. He lives in Warsaw.

If it is up to the new Tusk government, Polish television viewers will be presented with a completely different news program from Wednesday or Thursday at half past seven in the evening. “We are causing an avalanche,” Bogdan Zdrojewski, chairman of the media committee in Poland’s House of Commons, said of the proposed changes.

‘Depoliticizing’ TVP

On Tuesday afternoon, the House of Commons adopted a resolution to reform public broadcasting. Prime Minister Tusk is thus fulfilling his election promise to ‘depoliticize’ the public broadcaster.

It is of great symbolic importance that the broadcaster is overhauled, says Andrzej Bobiński, director of think tank Polityka Insight. ‘When someone else reads the news, that’s the moment when people feel the change.’

“We have made worse propaganda than in the 1970s,” or under communism, said former broadcasting director Marcin Wolski after the elections in October. When PiS came to power in 2015, it quickly took over the public broadcaster, which, in addition to TVP, also consists of Polskie Radio and the PAP news agency. Managers and journalists were fired and the broadcaster became a mouthpiece for the government. TVP has since had four pillars, a former journalist said in 2021: ‘Sports, entertainment shows, feature films and propaganda.’

‘Defense democracy’

On Tuesday evening, around a hundred PiS parliamentarians went to TVP’s headquarters in protest. They spent the night there. Among them was party leader Jarosław Kaczyński, who called it a ‘defense of democracy’ and insisted on media plurality.

The parliamentarians took selfies with TVP journalists, including in the broadcaster’s control room. Ironically, the PiS politicians thus confirmed exactly what their critics have been arguing for some time, namely that TVP is their own broadcaster: TVPis, as the broadcaster has come to be known colloquially in Poland.

It was also significant that only PiS-friendly media were given the opportunity to report up close on the action, loudly chanting ‘free media’. Journalists from other media were only allowed to watch the parliamentarians from behind the large windows of the headquarters.

Practical importance for Tusk

It is a test of strength between the new and the old government, says Bobiński. ‘PiS wants to show that it defends the institutions to which it believes it is entitled.’ For Tusk, the reform of the broadcaster is not only symbolic but also of practical importance: partisan reporting by TVP could undermine numerous reforms of the new government.

Bobiński: ‘PiS is playing the long game. The first six months are essential for any new government. Tusk needs to show that he can get things done. PiS can poison the social debate through the channel.’

Adam Szynol, media researcher at the University of Wrocław, underlines the importance of reforms in public broadcasting. ‘It is very important that decent journalistic standards return.’

TVP any free broadcaster

Poland has a wider television offering than just TVP. The public broadcaster has as large a market share as commercial (news) channels Polsat and TVN. Together they account for about three quarters of the programming. But TVP is the only broadcaster that can be seen and received for free in every corner of Poland. And according to Szynol, the audience consists mainly of older Poles who generally do not look for alternative news sources.

What Tusk is doing is not new, says Bobiński from Polityka Insight. ‘Every government so far has reformed broadcasting, there has always been a relationship between the broadcaster and the government. But under PiS this took on extreme proportions.’

There is one question hanging over the reforms, says Bobiński: ‘How do they achieve this within the law?’ PiS has raised numerous legal obstacles to make this difficult, for example last week the Constitutional Court (an extension of the previous government) banned the dismissal of the broadcasters’ management. President and PiS ally Duda can veto any legislative changes.

Tusk takes the offensive. He labels the ruling of the Constitutional Court as non-binding, his minister simply dismissed the broadcasting bosses. The new government is not impressed by the protests. In response to the statement that some journalists want to chain themselves to the heater, media committee chairman Zdrojewski said: “Just let them sit there.” The coming days are crucial, Bobiński thinks. Not only for TVP, but also for the other institutions that Tusk is reforming. ‘Just before Christmas, so that everyone talks about it at the dinner table during the holidays.’

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2023-12-20 12:34:48
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