Leading stakeholders in the Polish media and telecom industry say they strongly oppose further amendments to the country’s Broadcast Law.
In an appeal signed by, amongst others, the Polish Chamber of Electronic Communications (PIKE), the stakeholders add that the proposed changes – dubbed Lex Pilot (‘pilot’ is the Polish word for a TV remote control) – “deeply interfere with the freedom of economic activity and business models that are behind the success of the Polish media market so far, setting non-market and arbitrarily defined rules for cooperation between entrepreneurs, building offers and distributing content to customers, which either do not result from the European Code of Electronic Communications or are contradicting them. The proposed regulations are a revolution in the rules of the broadcasting market and a blow to diversity, choice and access to rich content in Polish, which will not only affect broadcasters, operators and creators, but above all Polish viewers.
“We call for the suspension of work on these harmful regulations, which will in fact limit competition and weaken the Polish television market.
“Such proposals require a serious public debate with all interested parties, a thorough consultation process and a thorough analysis of the effects of their entry into force, and not a legislative insertion at the last stage of government work. We do not find any justification or extraordinary circumstances for the need to carry out these works in such a non-transparent manner”.
The stakeholders go to say that the current proposal violates the basic principles of the legislative process.
They also emphasise that the planned changes may also lead to adverse social and economic effects.
The latter include limiting media diversity and access to content by subscribers, reducing the revenues of alternative broadcasters and restriction of the possibility of providing a TV service.
