“We promise that we will broadcast by all available means. If not from Poland, then from abroad,” declared Tomasz Sakiewicz, president of Telewizja Republika, following a court ruling concerning the station’s broadcasting license. He also addressed the justification behind the decision, pointing out what he described as falsehoods in the court’s reasoning.
Earlier today, the Voivodeship Administrative Court (WSA) overturned a decision by the National Broadcasting Council (KRRiT), made on June 21, 2024, which had granted Telewizja Republika and wPolsce24 slots on the digital multiplex. The ruling came after a legal challenge from MWE Networks, broadcaster of Polska24, and the court also ordered reimbursement of legal costs to the complainant.
Sakiewicz stressed that the court’s decision affects all forms of broadcasting, not just the multiplex.
“This means the decision regarding Telewizja Republika, under which you are currently able to watch our channel, has been legally questioned, and our broadcasting could be shut down,” he told viewers.
He remarked that this may be an unprecedented move: “This is probably the first decision of its kind in the history of the National Broadcasting Council and the Third Republic of Poland. I can’t recall anything like this, despite some very strange phenomena in the media market — despite mafias, secret services, and corruption. For the first time in history, such a far-reaching decision has been made.”
Sakiewicz also commented on the court’s justification. He highlighted that the presiding judge stated that “there is no consent from the secret services for Telewizja Republika to broadcast” and considered this mandatory. “This means that the current authorities, or even just their secret services, will decide which television stations are allowed to broadcast in Poland,” Sakiewicz explained.
He also recalled that the judge claimed Republika lacked sufficient funds and survives solely on viewer donations. “That’s simply not true,” Sakiewicz said. “We don’t just receive public funding — we also earn revenue. We’ve proven that. Republika has been profitable for the past four years. We are a revenue-generating station. The public funds we received were for growth, and that growth has happened because of it.”
“The judge — in what is, at the very least, a false public statement — claimed that the installment payment due was 6 million zloty. If she had checked the documents instead of relying on TVN reports, she would know that the payment was 1 million zloty. We paid it long ago. In fact, we were the first to pay, even before the deadline. I don’t think that’s ever happened before — someone paying their licensing fee ahead of time. We did it on purpose, to show we’re reliable, that we pay on time and have no issues doing so,” he emphasized.
Sakiewicz reminded viewers that TVN24 had already lost the ratings battle to Republika. “Even yesterday, they aired a report in which they were the main characters, portrayed as the ones fighting to strip us of our license,” he said.
“They couldn’t beat us in the marketplace, so they turned to the ‘free’ courts instead,” he added.
Sakiewicz concluded by saying that “today, freedom of speech in Poland is under threat to a degree unseen since 1989.”
“Public media have been taken over, and now private media are under attack,” he stated.
“We promise that we will broadcast by all available means. If not from Poland, then from abroad. And thanks to your support, we will succeed,” he vowed.