Polish broadcasters protest DVB-T2 viewer loss

Polish commercial broadcasters have issued a statement criticising the competition of the country’s transition to the DVB-T2 standard and how 2.5 million viewers are no longer be able to receive their services.

In it they say: “On June 27, the process of changing the frequency and standard of broadcasting of terrestrial TV channels from DVB-T to DVB-T2 will be completed. As a result of the decision of the Office of Electronic Communications, at the request of the Ministry of the Interior and Administration, private television was treated differently from public television, which, unlike commercial broadcasters, does not have to convert to the new DVB-T2 broadcasting standard.

“This means that the process of refarming and changing the broadcasting standard was carried out in a manner significantly different from the arrangements made in the last two years among broadcasters, UKE, KRRiT and the Ministry of Digitisation. As a result, about 2.5 million viewers are unable to receive the generally available channels of Polsat, TVN, TV Puls, Kino Polska and many others.

“We oppose unfair actions that deprive a large proportion of terrestrial viewers of access to their favourite channels and discriminate against all commercial broadcasters by favouring public television.

“We will fight for the rights of viewers, as well as ours, as the largest broadcasters in Poland, with the effects of these actions, and demand adequate compensation and the fastest possible switching of TVP channels to the broadcasting standard applicable to other broadcasters”.

The statement concludes that the channels with limited DTT access after UKE refarming are Polsat, TV4, TV6, Super Polsat, Eska TV, Polo TV, Fokus TV, TVN, TVN 7, TTV, TV Puls, Puls 2 and Stopklatka.