The Polish public broadcaster TVP has issued a detailed statement on the impact of the pandemic on its financial situation.
In it, it criticises “unreliable publications” who present its position in a false light, adding that this is “an example of a common phenomenon that haters generally do not understand he facts and figures on which they base their hatred”.
TVP says that in 2020 it incurred significant expenses, mainly due to the acquired rights to broadcast large sports events on TVP, which were ultimately postponed from 2020 to this year. Despite the implementation of most of the planned expenses in 2020, the costs included in the financial result in 2020 are lower than the adopted plan by PLN265.5 million (€58 million). This is the effect of a one-year shift in the moment when the already incurred expenses become a cost in the sense of the balance sheet and accounting and taxation. This situation results from the accrual-based and not cash-based principle of calculating the company’s financial result in force in Poland. In line with this methodology, TVP’s result for 2020 gross was + PLN303.0 million (the net result translates into a profit of PLN198.3 million). The high positive result, the unplanned part of which is tentatively referred to as “covid profit”, is largely the result of moving events and broadcasts to 2021, and thus postponing the inclusion of already incurred expenses in the costs. Thus, the TV production cycle and the acquired broadcasting rights constitute a pre-paid “product” that is waiting for sale in the “warehouse”, and the purchase price, in accordance with the accounting principles, will be included in operating costs only at the time of sale, i.e. broadcasting, which is systematically taking place in 2021. These expenses already incurred, towards deferred costs, will in 2021 have a financial effect opposite to 2020, i.e. the “covid loss”. It will appear when the expenses incurred in 2020 become an additional cost of TVP’s operations in 2021.
Due to the financial effect of the pandemic, TVP forecasts a negative financial result for 2021 in the amount of PLN 84 million (net PLN250 million). In this way, the impact of the pandemic on the financial economy of the company in 2020 will end only in 2021. After the result, increased by the “covid profit”, in 2020 there will be a mirror “covid loss” in 2021. As a result of the described anomalies, caused by the pandemic the financial situation of TVP in 2020 and 2021 should be considered jointly. As a result, last year’s “covid loss” will be compensated by the “covid loss” of 2021. These temporary anomalies in 2020 and 2021 will balance out in a two-year period, which confirms the company’s stable financial position. Despite numerous difficulties and disruptions, in particular accelerated expenses as well as postponed events and broadcasts, TVP’s operations in the described two-year cycle will, in total, end up with a small profit.
“Stabilising the financial situation during the pandemic, while maintaining the continuity of work and television production, and maintaining a dynamic development path is a great success of TVP and an example of responsible and correct decisions of the management board”.
TV concludes by saying: “The described situation is an interesting market example in which Polish Television successfully managed the negative impact of the pandemic on the financial economy of its company. The bizarre publications describing this case as alleged financial problems only reveal the lack of elementary competences of their authors, as well as the shortcomings in the journalistic workshop, as none of the authors contacted TVP before the publication”.
