Broadcasting in Poland at the end of 1990s

In the middle of 1994 the construction of Polish broadcasting order in the air began, which concerns the licensing process (according to Broadcasting Act) and closing down illegal, pirate stations. In 1990-1993 the Poles, especially those living in big cities, had a chance to receive the radio programmes of dozens of stations, usually pirate ones, which were transmitted on low frequency band. At the same time, Polish listeners reduced the listening of foreign Polish-languge stations as well as state radio channels (e.g. PR1 and PR3 ś very popular a few years earlier). Moreover, PR1 transmitted on long radio waves lost its range of transmitting, because its radio transmitter the highest in Europe collapsed. In the middle of the decade, new commercial radio stations of national range (RMF FM and Radio Zet) managed to gain remarkable shares in the total radio audience, and almost 100 local radio stations had the audience comparable to the overall audience of 17 regional state radio stations. In 1997 the number of listeners of the commercial station RMF FM could be compared to the public PR1 audience, and Radio Zet gained more listeners than a famouse and popular (especially among young listeners in the 1980s) public radio PR3. Another powerful station competing (and gaining a comparable audience rate) with PR3 was Catholic Radio Maryja. During the last years of the decade commercial radio stations mentioned above continued to strenghten their position in the media market, while public radio stations were losing their position at national as well as regional level. The position of the leaders was not shaken by various attempts to  consolidate private, local (Eska network, stations of Agora broadcaster) as well as church local stations (Catholic network Radio Plus). In such a competition for the same listeners, the stations lose their individual character and change their programme formats immitating the leaders. Nowdays almost all stations reduce their news and commentary materials, and transmit similar mainly popular music.

 Deconstruction of a few-decade-long monopoly of two state-operated tv channels TVP1 and TVP 2 (public channels since 1994) started at the end of the 1980s. At the beginning, it was helped by Western satellite channels, which were received by viewers due to spontaneously established cable networks, and ś a few years later ś by individual satellite devices. Before the licensing process (approximately until the middle of 1994), a dozen of pirate local stations (ground transmitters) located in big cities, especially those grouped in the Polish-Italian network Polonia1 became very popular. At the same time we could observe the beginnings of the future success of commercial tv station Polsat, which was transmitted through the satellite. TVP tried to limit the growing influence of these private channels, thus it gradually launched local tv channels (situated in big cities which became the basis for future development of regional television network TVP3). Launching the satellite channel Telewizja Polonia was another attempt to maintain the dominant position of public television undertaken at that time. Polsat was and is the only television which was granted the national range commercial programme licence and the right to broadcast its programmes through ground and satellite transmitters. In 1995-1997 Polsat strongly competed for the audience, basing this struggle on a programme offer succesfully introduced by Polonia 1, i.e. Latin American soap-operas, American series e.g. McGuiver. At the end of 1997, for the first and last time in its history Polsat gained a higher rate of audience than public TVP1, but during the last years of the 20^th century the competition for shares in tv market and weekly audience shares between these two broadcasters became really serious. As a result, commercial Polsat managed to attract more viewers than public TVP2. Since 1996-1998 public television channels as well as Polsat have had to face a new competition with (1) supra-regional channels (TVN ś after merging with TV Wisła and Nasza TV ś after starting co-operation with a group of local stations Odra, in 2000 changed to TV4 and introduced into Polsat group), (2) broadcasters transmitting their programmes from abroad only for Poland through satellite (Polonia 1, RTL7 and Super1), (3) many Polish-language versions of well-known thematic channels (Eurosport, Discovery, Planete, TCM etc., and since 2000 the music ones such as MTV and Viva), and finally, (4) programmes available through three digital television platforms.

So, at the turn of the century the tv viewers (it is about 95-97% of the population) still spent approximately about 3.5 hours per day watching tv, but they divided their time among 4 most accessible channels (tv shares in overall viewing time): TVP 1 and Polsat (each about 24-25%), TVP 2 (18%), and TVN (11-12%). Additionally, RTL 7, TV 4, TVP 3 (Regional) each and all foreign satellite channels together gained about 3-4% of the audience shares.

Since the fall 1999 the leading tv commercial stations intensified their activities in order to attract attention of the Polish viewers. Polsat gains high tv audience indicators due to commedy series and by immitating TVN ś which is the leader in the market considering the number and popularity of attractive tv quizes based on Western ones (Millionaires), entertainment programmes (The way to be a star) and reality shows (Agent, Big Brother ś with its second edition on-going). Polsat enters the competition with its own similar programmes (Two Worlds, Amazons, Gladiators). Public television tries to defend its position by introducing more and more Polish soap-operas and series as well as various entertainment programmes. Digital platforms such as Cyfra + and Wizja TV, which have been competing in fierce destructive promotional compaigns since 1998, each gained 400 thousand payers already in spring 2001. However, these numbers do not guarantee profitability of the platforms (but Wizja TV reaches about 1 million households thorugh cable tv UPC). Nevertheless, after the merger of these two platforms there should be a remarkable change in the offer. Programmes from the competitive platform of Polsat are said to reach 230 thousand households.