Polish public service broadcaster
Telewizja Polska |
| Type | Broadcast television |
|---|
| Country | |
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| Availability | Nationwide
International |
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| Motto | Bądźmy razem. TVP (Let's be together. TVP) |
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| Headquarters | 17 Woronicza Street, Warsaw, Poland |
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| Owner | Government of Poland |
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Key people | Mateusz Matyszkowicz
(General Director)
Maciej Łopiński
(Deputy Managing Director) |
|---|
Launch date | 25 October 1952; 70 years ago (25 October 1952) |
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Former names | None; previously shortened as TP until 1992 |
|---|
Official website | tvp.pl |
|---|
Telewizja Polska S.A. (pronounced [tɛlɛˈvizja ˈpɔlska]; TVP), also known in English as Polish Television, is a state media corporation in Poland, founded in 1952.[1][2][3] It is the oldest and largest Polish television network,[4] although viewership has been declining in the 2010s.[5]
Since 1993, the legal status of the broadcaster has been defined by the Broadcasting Act, according to which Telewizja Polska is obliged to implement "a public mission ... by offering ... various programmes and other services in the field of information, journalism, culture, entertainment, education and sport, characterized by pluralism, impartiality, balance and independence as well as innovation, high quality and integrity of the message."[6]
International cooperation
In 2012, TVP signed an agreement with the BBC, under which they will work together on film and television productions.[13][needs update]
The French-German TV liberal arts network ARTE cancelled a 15-year cooperation with TVP,[14] when it learned in February 2009 that TVP's general director, Piotr Farfał, was a member of the League of Polish Families, which opposed Arte's "philosophy based on intercultural exchange"[15] and "the party that TVP's chairman is presently connected with does not share European values".[16] It was again cancelled in January 2016 after an amendment of the media law in Poland, which caused fears of a lack of pluralism and independence of TVP.[17]
Viewership
In September 2020, TVP's "Wiadomości" was the most popular news program in Poland, with an average of 2.66 million viewers a day.[18]
In February 2021, TVP's "Wiadomości" was second most popular news program in Poland, with an average of 2.41 million viewers a day.[19]
Controversies
Before 2015, the PiS (then opposition) often criticized TVP of siding with government (PO-PSL)[36][37][38] or even compared it to communist propaganda[39] In 2015, the government passed a law allowing it to directly appoint the head of TVP.[40] Since then, TVP has displayed bias towards the Law and Justice (PiS) party (then government), and was compared by critics with propaganda of the former Communist regime.[41][42][43] TVP has also faced criticism for its portrayal of LGBT people, the political opposition, Jews, and other groups as a shadowy conspiracy seeking to undermine Poland.[44][45] In 2018, The Economist stated: "the [TVP] anchors... praise PiS slavishly while branding its critics treacherous crypto-communists.[46]
In July 2016 Politico.eu criticized it for strong pro-government bias.[47]
In 2017, TVP triggered a hate campaign against Polsat journalist Dorota Bawolek, following a question the Bawolek asked to the European Commission in Brussels regarding a controversial judicial reform in Poland.[48] The hate campaign resulted in death threats against the journalist. The European Commission expressed its condemnation of the online hate campaign caused by TVP[49] and the Strasbourg-based Council of Europe issued an alert to the Polish authorities in respect of the hate campaign against Bawolek.[50]
The press freedom organization Reporters Without Borders wrote in its 2019 assessment of Polish press freedom that "many blamed state-owned TV broadcaster TVP's 'hate propaganda' for Gdansk mayor Pawel Adamowicz's murder in January 2019.".[51] Ahead of the 2019 European parliament elections, TVP ran 105 segments of the election of which 68 of 69 focused on the ruling party were positive and all 33 about the opposition were negative, according to a study by the Society of Journalists.[42] Polish political scientist and anti-racism activist Rafał Pankowski stated, "I am old enough to remember Communist-controlled television in the 1980s, and I can safely say that what we have now is cruder, more primitive, and more aggressive than anything that was broadcast at that time."[42] This contrasts with the testimonies that killer of Pawel Adamowicz was reading Gazeta Wyborcza, Dziennik Bałtycki, Polityka and Wprost[52] and watched TVN,[53] and Polsat but not TVP[54]
TVP was heavily criticized in the run-up to the 2020 Polish presidential election, being described as the "mouthpiece" of the government[55] and as "peddl[ing] government hate speech" by the organization Reporters Without Borders.[56] The state television broadcast a segment of Wiadomości called Trzaskowski spełni żydowskie żądania? ("Will Trzaskowski meet Jewish demands?") regarding the Civic Platform candidate Rafał Trzaskowski. A complaint was made by the American Jewish Committee, Union of Jewish Religious Communities, the Chief Rabbi of Poland, to the Polish Media Ethics Council [pl] regarding antisemitism in the program. The Council concluded not only were anti-semitic statements made in the show, it did not uphold journalistic standards: Wiadomości "turned into an instrument of propaganda of one of the candidates in this election".[57][58][59][60][61][62]
In 2020, the station was ordered to retract a documentary, Inwazja, released just before the 2019 elections. Comparing the LGBT movement unfavorably to the Swedish Deluge and Communism, the documentary claimed that there is an "LGBT invasion" of Poland and that LGBT organizations have the goal of legalizing pedophilia. It was found to defame the Campaign Against Homophobia organization. Ombudsman Adam Bodnar stated, "The material not only reproduces stereotypes and heightens social hatred towards LGBT people, but also manipulates facts."[63][64][42][65]
According to Timothy Garton Ash, "the broadcaster has descended into the paranoid world of the far right, where spotless, heroic, perpetually misunderstood Poles are being conspired against by dark, international German-Jewish-LGBT-plutocratic forces meeting secretly in Swiss chateaux."[44] TVP president Jacek Kurski rejected the contention that the organization violated broadcasting law,[66][67] and conservative media commentator and former TVP employee Jacek Karnowski says the station "deserves recognition" for its "consistent promotion of patriotism and pro-state thinking".[68][69]
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