In December 2023, just a few days after actually coming into office, the new left-liberal government led by Donald Tusk took over Poland’s public television and radio, flouting legislation on public media, and putting those broadcasters into a state of liquidation.
The liquidation was just a ploy to remove the previous management of these media outlets which had been sympathetic to the former conservative Law and Justice (PiS) government. The trouble is that, as the managers and scores of journalists were booted out and replaced by people who support the Tusk government, the viewers who had been watching TVP, voted with their feet.
In fact, according to viewing figures produced by Nielsen Audience Measurement and published by portal Wirtualnemedia.pl, the TVP’s news channel TVP Info has over the past five months lost 70 percent of the viewers it had under the former management. At the same time, conservative TV Republika and wPolsce.pl witnessed a huge rise in their viewing figures.
TV Republika is now Poland’s second most popular TV News channel with over 3 percent of the total market, an increase of 3,278 percent since December. It stands in second, behind the commercial and foreign-owned TVN24, which has 6 percent of the market.
Third in the current rankings is the Polish-owned commercial channel Polsat News, with TVP Info trailing with 1.2 percent, less than half of the viewing figures currently recorded by TV Republika. The second conservative television station, wPolsce.pl, also recorded a very high growth of 1,100 percent to 0.36 percent. The station ranked eighth in the lineup.
The collapse of viewing figures of public television may also have contributed to the strong start made by a new current affairs internet TV channel, Kanał Zero, which has attracted close to a million viewers and has been attacked by liberal commentators and politicians for its independent stance.
