The National
Broadcasting Council

‘The events of December 2023 undermined the foundations of media governance in Poland, dealing a severe blow to the credibility, viewership and position of public media. Viewership of leading news and current affairs programmes suffered huge losses. Two years after the “takeover”, public television has not regained most of the viewers it had at the time of the so-called “liquidation”’. KRRiT chairwoman Dr Agnieszka Glapiak emphasised that ‘this is worrying, as all Poles have the right to impartial, reliable and credible public media, and the National Broadcasting Council has a duty to demand these values from the media’

In 2023, an unprecedented event took place in the history of Polish radio and television. The government initiated the process of liquidating all public media companies in Poland: Telewizja Polska S.A., Polskie Radio S.A., and the 17 regional Polskie Radio stations, as well as the Polska Agencja Prasowa S.A.

The process of liquidating the media took place in violation of applicable law, based solely on a Sejm resolution. The Broadcasting Act was disregarded and management in the companies was replaced without regard for the provisions of the National Media Council Act. The government violated the Polish Constitution, including Article 7, which states that ‘public authorities shall act on the basis of and within the limits of the law’. Therefore, a Sejm resolution cannot take precedence over the law.

Company management was replaced by force with the assistance of hired security guards. The television signal was switched off and news, current affairs programmes and advertisements were discontinued, causing huge financial losses for Telewizja Polska.

• During the morning hours, the Sejm received a draft resolution titled ‘Restoring Legal Order, the Impartiality and Reliability of Public Media, and the Polish Press Agency’. Bogdan Zdrojewski, a member of the Civic Coalition, represented the applicants.
• A vote on the resolution was held at 10:13 p.m. The document was adopted at an express pace late in the evening. Members of the Civic Coalition, the Third Way and the Left voted in favour. Members of the Law and Justice party, Confederation and Kukiz'15 either voted against or abstained.
• Shortly before midnight on the same day, the Minister of Culture and National Heritage, Bartłomiej Sienkiewicz, dismissed the public media authorities and the Polish Press Agency. The ministry’s announcement, published the following day, did not include the names of those appointed to the new supervisory and management boards of the companies.

In less than two hours – from the adoption of the Sejm resolution to midnight – general meetings of three companies were held, followed by the drawing up of minutes at a notary's office. MP Paweł Jabłoński pointed out this surprising situation on his ‘X’ profile on 25 December 2023, writing: ‘Within 107 minutes of the Sejm passing the resolution, the shareholders’ meetings of three companies were to be held at the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage (MKiDN) headquarters, and then their minutes were to be drawn up elsewhere with Minister Lt. Col. Sienkiewicz’s signature affixed in accordance with the notarial deed’.  He pointed out that the Sejm passed the resolution on 19 December 2023 at 10:13 p.m., meaning there were only 107 minutes until midnight that day to complete the entire procedure.

These changes were made in contravention of the Constitutional Tribunal’s decision that the State Treasury must not make changes to the management boards of public radio and television companies. On 14 December 2023, the Constitutional Tribunal issued a security measure ensuring that no changes could be made to these management boards until the hearing set by the Constitutional Tribunal on 16 January 2024.

According to a statement by the Minister of Culture and National Heritage, the personnel decisions were based on the provisions of the Commercial Companies Code. However, the regulations resulting from the Broadcasting Act and the Polish Press Agency Act, as well as the constitutional role of the National Broadcasting Council — which safeguards media order in Poland — were disregarded.

• At 11:15 a.m., TVP Info’s signal was switched off and the tvp.info website ceased to function. Instead of the TVP Info news channel, TVP 1 appeared, showing the series Korona królów (The Crown of Kings).
• 11:45 a.m., Piotr Zemła arrived at the TVP headquarters on Woronicza Street and introduced himself as the new Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Telewizja Polska.
• At 12:00 noon, TVP President Mateusz Matyszkowicz signed documents dismissing Zemła from his position as President of Telewizja Polska S.A.The next day, 21 December, Wirtualnemedia.pl published an article announcing that Zemła had become the new Chairman of the Supervisory Board of TVP, with Maciej Taborowski as his deputy. Tomasz Sygut, former head of the Television Information Agency (TAI), replaced Mateusz Matyszkowicz as President of TVP.
• At 12:00 noon, TVP1 did not broadcast the TVP news programme ‘Wiadomości’. Instead, viewers saw advertisements.
• After 12:00 – Adrian Borecki appeared on the live programme 'Agrobiznes' and confirmed that 'Wiadomości' was scheduled to start at 12:00, but was not broadcast. ‘I don't think this has ever happened in Polish history. I think the Polish media has been taken over’, he said. At that moment, the programme was interrupted and advertisements were broadcast instead.
• At 12:10 p.m., the TVP Info channel's logo disappeared. Instead, TVP Polonia began broadcasting. An episode of the series Ojciec Mateusz (Father Matthew) was broadcast.
• At 5:00 p.m. – ‘Teleexpress’  was not broadcast.
• At 6:00 p.m., ‘Panorama’ was taken off the air and TVP3 did not broadcast local news and current affairs programmes. The series ‘Reset’ was removed from the TVP internet platform.
• At 7:30 p.m., Marek Czyż’s statement appeared on TVP1 during ‘Wiadomości’: ‘Instead of propaganda slop, we want to offer you clean water’. Marek Czyż delivered his speech from a rented ZPR Media studio, where the programme ‘19.30’ had been broadcast until 30 December 2023.

Finally, on 27 December 2023, the Minister of Culture and National Heritage decided to put public media companies into liquidation.

Two years on, the main news and current affairs programmes on public television have yet to recover from their losses. TVP Info, formerly the market leader among domestic news channels, has been particularly badly affected. Today, it lags significantly behind its competitors. After the unlawful shutdown of its signal at the end of December 2023, the channel’s viewership fell dramatically. By the end of 2024, TVP Info had recorded over 70% fewer viewers than in 2023. By November 2025, TVP Info had 73% fewer viewers than two years earlier.

The ‘19.30’ news programme also lost viewers dramatically. Following the shutdown on 21 December 2023, the new news programme replaced ‘Wiadomości'’under a new name.  In 2024, ‘19.30’ was watched by an average of between 700,000 and 900,000 fewer viewers than ‘Wiadomości’. In November 2025, ‘19.30’ had over half the number of viewers (just over a million) of ‘Wiadomości’ in November 2023.

Both ‘Panorama’ and ‘Teleexpress’ recorded significant declines in viewership, amounting to hundreds of thousands of viewers. Competitors have benefited from the decline in Telewizja Polska’s viewership, which is currently in liquidation.

As a constitutional body safeguarding freedom of speech, the right to information, and the public interest in radio and television, the National Broadcasting Council has a duty to remind the public that public radio and television fulfil a public mission. This means that they offer society as a whole diverse programmes and services in the fields of information, journalism, culture, entertainment, education and sport, characterised by pluralism, impartiality, balance and independence. However, two years after the takeover, public media are not fulfilling these obligations.

The report on the liquidation of public media, ‘Timeline of the liquidation of public media in Poland – KRRiT Report’, is a two-part study published in July and December 2024. It is based on KRRiT documents, media reports, and social media posts.

Part I of the report covers the period from 19 December 2023, when the Sejm (the lower house of parliament) passed a resolution on changes to the public media, to 13 May 2024, when the National Broadcasting Council adopted its Report on Activities in 2023.

Part II covers the period from 13 May to 28 November 2024, i.e. until the National Broadcasting Council’s next request to the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage to ensure a stable process for the liquidation of public media.