Chilly times for Polish public television

By Mark Thompson

Warsaw, 23 Jan 2010

Doris Pack, an MEP and activist (Photo: SWS courtesy)

As in other countries of central and east European, successive governments and parliaments have manipulated the national broadcast network, treating it with a combination of flattering attention and cool contempt which has severely undermined program standards and public credibility. The politicised governance and management structures have impoverished the news and information output, as well as other uncommercial program strands. (For details, see the two reports on Poland in the Television across Europe project, on this website.)
Despite critical statements from various quarters, there has been no sustained campaign for legal or institutional reform. Now this looks set to change. Indeed, over the past few months, not one but two distinct initiatives have emerged.
One of these initiatives was unveiled in Warsaw on Saturday 23 January 2010. The organising body was an NGO, Stowarzyszenie Wolnego Słowa (SWS) (Association of the Free Word), assisted by the Friedrich Ebert and Robert Bosch Foundations, with support too from OSI.
The SWS convinced a member of parliament, Iwona Śledzińska Katarasińska, who chairs the parliamentary Culture and Media Committee, to host a ‘hearing’ at the parliament, where international as well as Polish experts would discuss the principles and practice of public service media (PSM), in order to focus attention on the plight of PSB in Poland, and launch a wider campaign for reforms.

Market's not enough

Titled Future or Funeral? The Dual System at a Crossroads – Defining Legislative Standards for the Survivability of Public Service Media, the hearing was intended to launch a process that will lead to the preparation of a ‘checklist’ of essential features of democratic broadcasting legislation.
Some 80 politicians, media managers, journalists and others turned out on a bitterly cold Saturday, with temperatures sinking to –20°C, to hear speakers from across Austria, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Portugal, Slovakia and the UK, as well as Poland. 
In her opening remarks, Mrs Śledzińska Katarasińska emphasized the continuing lack of transparency over TVP’s funding. Licence fee collection rates suffer from the fact that two-thirds of Poles watch TVP via satellite or cable, for which they pay separate subscription fees. “People don’t see why they should pay twice,” she said in a remark that gave the visitors some idea of the scale of problems facing public service broadcasting in Poland.
In his keynote speech, Martin Stadelmaier, chair of the Broadcasting Commission of the Länder (German regions), said that some media standards cannot be implemented by following market principles; pluralism of opinions, for example. He criticized some parliaments for not carrying out their watchdog function over PSM in an effective way, and suggested that diversity in PSM output needs constitutional guarantees. Checks and balances in the governance system can prevent PSM from domination by any political party.
Hans Peter Lehofer, a judge at the Austrian higher administrative court, said that independence is more easily achieved by PSM when they are funded by the licence fee than if they depend on day-to-day funding by parliament. Legal frameworks are important, but not decisive, for PSM. What matters most, he suggested, are a society’s expectations, habits and norms.
László Majtényi recently resigned from Hungarian broadcasting regulatory authority (ORTT) after ORTT decided to strip the incumbent national radio broadcasters of their licences, which were given instead to two stations closely linked with political parties, the Free Democrats and the Social Democrats. Mr Majtényi said that we can now see that markets can be just as dangerous for media freedom as the state. Claudio Cappon of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), formerly the managing director of RAI, described the difficulties facing PSM all over Europe. These problems are different in degree only. The EBU is working on a white paper about the situation of broadcasting around Europe. “We hope to make it public in the next months,” Mr Cappon said. While no legal framework can guarantee good results, and there is no single model of PSM, they all have to find a balance between independence and accountability. (But accountability to what? To government and parliament, or to standards and the public interest? Or to all of these things?)

The Italian factor

Concerning compliance with international standards, Cappon suggested that “something more may be done at the European level”, for example to make Council of Europe standards binding. However, the ultimate defence of PSM has to be provided by public support. This support reflects the public assessment of performance. The provision of high-quality, unbiased information is not an easy thing, and PSM must be preserved in Europe. “This is our [EBU’s] responsibility, and we must deserve it,” he said.

Professor Stanisław Jędrzejewski from the Catholic University of Lublin summarized the “extraordinary situation” of TVP. The licence fee “has crumbled into oblivion”, to the point that “we may be seeing the collapse of this source of funding”. Poland is one of those countries of central and eastern Europe where PSM are “struggling with the terrible legacy of the past, the weakness of civil society, with the lack of credibility of political representatives, corruption, and the low level of public identification with political processes.”

PSM in these countries are seen as institutions that cannot achieve independence from the state; cannot develop a pluralistic program offer, and are fought over by political elites. “Some are now so indebted that they stand on the brink of bankruptcy. Latvia, for example,” Mr Jedrzejewski said. Researchers say that the “Italianisation” of Polish media is well underway, but this term is not very helpful. “The broadcast media are at a crossroads between performing their statutory duties and commercialization. Like the press,” he said. Throughout central and eastern Europe, the PSM are subordinate to the state authorities in one way or another.
“There is nothing bad about PSM coming under pressure as such,” he remarked in eloquent conclusion. “What is bad is succumbing to that pressure.” To which one can only add, that the legal and governance systems need to let the PSM resist such pressure.

EU Politics

Doris Pack, an MEP since 1989 with a strong record of defending media freedom, explained that media policy in the European Union “is very complex, even for an insider”. Media policy is not a pyramid with the EU at the top; it is built by member states. No area has been more affected by the subsidiarity principle: “the EU cannot interfere with what the member states do, because there is no legal basis.” Furthermore, “we have to remember our commitments stemming from the internal market regulations under DG Competition,” Ms Pack said.
During the 1990s, the EU chose not to address the question of media ownership concentration, “for political reasons. If it had wanted to find a legal basis, it could have done so.” She made three suggestions regarding PSM: their independence should be guaranteed “so that the requirements of Article 10 can be respected”; funding should suffice to make the PSM viable; and funding should be transparent.
For the Council of Europe, Jan Malinowski quoted an epigram: “Tell me what PSM you have, and I will tell you what kind of society you live in.” This is why the CoE Parliamentary Assembly has made PSM an indicator of democracy.
From the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, Piotr Dmochowsky-Lipski said that Poland had good people with the experience and know-how to restructure TVP, but they don’t get a chance “because media managers are appointed on a political basis.” This “shameful procedure” prevents the emergence of a healthy business model for PSM. Then there is the problem of public trust, which researchers say is a major issue in Poland. What should be done? “We need to establish clear criteria for PSM. What are the indicators to determine whether values are being implemented or not? “Transparency is of the essence, and we don’t have it. We should have the right to know about the annual investment plan, and its use. And we need a return to professional, non-partisan appointments of management.”
Chris Dawes from the UK Ministry of Culture, Media and Sport described the BBC’s policy of “360-degree commissioning”, so that output can be delivered and accessed on different platforms. “We need PSM that will engage and inform all citizens. This requires quality, because audiences respond best to high-quality domestic production, and a range of programs – diversity.”
Research finds strong support for PSM; the latest figures show 87 per cent support for impartial news, and over 90 per cent support for having more than one supplier of such news. PSM need a strong brand, which can lead people to new products. “The BBC has put some stuff on YouTube, because that is where part of the audience is.” And as we move into the online era, the provision of public service content becomes more, not less, important.
Verena Wiedermann from ARD usefully listed the things that we want from PSM, and that PSM need: independence, high-quality output, quality control, sufficient and transparent funding, universal distribution with a strong brand (which can create trust), and accountability.
Juliusz Braun, also from the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, characterized the crisis of Polish media as a vicious circle: “our PSM are of poor quality because we have no money, and there is no money because of poor quality.” PSM should, on the contrary, be a touchstone or benchmark of quality.

Two sets of views emerged during the meeting about the future of the dual system. While most panellists favoured the continuation of public service media, some showed only limited confidence that they will actually be able to survive beyond another 10 or 15 years. Others argued that with widespread official acceptance of community, or civic, media as a distinct segment of the media scene, the term "dual system" was no longer adequate; we should really be speaking about a "tripartite media system".

A Copernican revolution

The day was rounded off by Karol Jakubowicz, the Polish broadcasting expert who has served high offices in the CoE and UNESCO, as well as in Poland itself, over many years. PSM can have a future, Jakubowicz said, but only if there is “a Copernican revolution”. PSM should counteract the tabloidisation of private media. “Someone said that technology will destroy PSM. No, it is ideology that could destroy PSM, not technology. In the post-communist countries, we have tried to build PSM on a model from the 1960s. If PSM are to survive in Poland or elsewhere, they need to surmount political, ideological, technological, cultural and regulatory barriers to adjust to the conditions of the 21st century," Mr Jakubowicz said.
"As for Poland, it is true that, as in other post-communist countries, political parties divide up the channels among themselves. However, unlike other countries, “it has happened several times that the opposition parties have been in control of the main media,” he added.
Jakubowicz briefly mentioned the second reform initiative. This is led by a new body called the Civic Committee of Public Media (CCPM), which was formed by a number of artists and media producers after a cultural congress in Krakow last autumn. Vigorous criticism of TVP was expressed at that congress, leading a government minister to invite the critics to prepare a new law. Some details of a draft have emerged, and they are radical indeed: for example, it would establish a new Council of Public Media, to guarantee the independent, non-partisan selection of senior managers at TVP.
The CCPM would aim to reverse TVP’s income ratio of 93:07 (in 2010) in favour of commercial income over licence fee income. Then it would replace the licence fee with a hypothecated tax, on a scale that would allow a special fund to be available to all broadcasters, modeled on the Polish film fund, which is seen as a success. A new TVP web-portal would provide extensive services free to licence-fee (or hypothecated tax) payers.
Both these initiatives are exciting and hold promise. Their organizers should be encouraged to work closely together, pooling resources in order to maximise their impact.

The CCPM should hold extensive consultations on its bold draft law, as soon as it is ready, while the SWS should offer all the assistance at its disposal.