Poland’s National Broadcasting Council (KRRiT) has ruled that the seven channels in the country that currently have must-carry status must also been offered free of charge by broadcasters providing TV services over the internet.
In a statement, the regulator says that in coming to its decision it referred to an EU Directive from 2002 that classified the internet as an electronic communications network.
However, Jan Dworak, the chairman of the KRRiT, added that must-carry should only be applied to operators that have at least 100,000 subscribers.
He also said that aside from public broadcasters, must-carry status may be granted by the Council to new stations for a period of five years – or half the length of their licences – in order to help them become established in the market.
The seven channels that currently have must-carry status in Poland are the public broadcaster’s TVP1, TVP2 and TVP Info, along with the commercial services Polsat, TVN, TV4 and TV Puls.