When Republic finally hit a million viewers, its guests reminded viewers just how radical, aggressive, not to mention hateful and just plain wild right-wing the channel gives voice to.
When the long-awaited change process at TVP began, some of the stars of the station's information and journalism – those who did not occupy its headquarters in Plac Powstańców Warszawy – moved to Telewizja Republika, often literally transplanting their old programs to television. A new channel – such as Michal Rachon with we carry. Rachon and Danuta Holecka were followed by loyal TVP Info viewers, as a result of which Republika recorded a gigantic, sudden increase in viewership, which allowed it to overtake Polsat News at the end of December and take second place among news channels, after TVN 24.
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In response to this data, there were rumors that maybe, thanks to the changes in TVP, PiS could build its own news channel with decent coverage in the base of the republic and finally stop complaining about how “Post” is harming it. -Communist system” in the Polish media pie section.
Over the past few days, Republika has reminded itself that it is primarily a niche, identity-driven media outlet for the Polish right – with all the advantages of its inventory.
The gentlemen presented themselves perfectly in front of millions of listeners
Since New Year's Day, “Republika” had one image failure after another. It started with the infamous statement of Jan Pietrzak, who, speaking about the migration pact, said: “I have a cruel joke about these migrants, but they (Germans – who else?) count on the fact that the Poles are ready because we have them. Barracks. We have barracks for immigrants: Auschwitz, Majdanek, Treblinka, Stutthof. We have a lot of barracks built by the Germans, and that's where we will keep the forced immigrants by the Germans.”
Pietrzak's words caused widespread protests, there were accusations of trivializing and instrumentalizing the Holocaust, even the Auschwitz Museum spoke, and the prosecutor's office started an investigation. However, when the indignation over the satirical words, which have been funny lately in Jaruzelski's time, has not yet subsided, Marek Krol went on air and decided to share his ideas for solving the migration crisis: migrants should be rounded up like “cattle” or tattooed, because it is actually cheaper. Finally, Kukiz 15 MP Marek Jakubiak, a brewer elected from Warsaw's PiS list and associated with the national right, likened the migrants settled in Poland to “garbage”. .
To paraphrase the classic: the gentlemen performed themselves perfectly in front of millions of listeners. When Republic finally hit a million viewers, its guests reminded viewers just how radical, aggressive, not to mention hateful and just plain savage the right wing that the channel gives voice to is. After all, Pietrzak, Krol and Jakubiak are not random people in the commentary and political world of the Polish right. They are regularly present in the Republic, in the Karnowski brothers' media and until the end of 2023 also in Polish Radio and TVP, especially in Info.
Politicians working as journalists, i.e. in the service of TVP PiS
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The editors of “Republika” perfectly knew their views and style of arguments. Publishers and hosts knew who to invite and what to expect. The Republic itself talks about the migration pact and the likely movement of migrants that Poland will face as a result – just like in the PiS message. And with almost the entire narrative of the PiS media and the political right, they should only bring violence, vandalism and even terror, Islamization, violence against women and similar phenomena to Poland.
Screening of advertisers
In response to the actions of the three commentators, other advertisers began to withdraw from the station: Ikea, mBank, Media Expert, Pyszne.pl. The right reacted in typical fashion: calls for boycotts of ex-advertisers, accusations of censorship, even lustrational crusades on Website X.
Ikea has been reminded that its boss in Poland is Russian, so we know what, or rather who, is really behind the decision to cut off advertising funds from Poland's last bastion of free media. In turn, mBank was “exposed” by right-wing investigative journalist Piotr Nistor as an institution “founded by people from the special services of the Polish People's Republic” that saved ITI – the former owner of TVN – from bankruptcy and recently “lent. PO Millions for Election Campaign”. The only question that remains is why a patriotic media outlet like the Republic would take money from an establishment in such a convoluted “late post-communist” system.
The problem is that the blackmail of “advertise with us or we'll check you out” certainly doesn't encourage potential advertisers to enter into any kind of relationship with the station and the environment that creates and supports it. A right-wing boycott of Ikea would do far less harm to the Swedish company than the removal of its advertising would to the republic itself. The right has already boycotted Ikea — the last time the company released rainbow bags — and it hasn't helped them much.
The way the station reacted to the crisis surrounding the announcements of Pietrzak and other guests, as well as the attitude of the public gathered around the station towards advertisers, gives the impression that the PiS right is after losing power. An increasingly frivolous and crazy environment and not worth doing anything about.
Bill for an easy solution
Fox News, which the Polish right-wing so longs for and whose native version it dreams of, is, for its part, first and foremost a serious, profitable media business, one of the most popular news channels in the United States.
The Polish right wing has never managed to create a popular, truly large-scale media that can make money.
Right-wing media initiatives have operated in two modes over the past decade: Czestochowa's protector and state supplier. The first involved the maximum mobilization of readers and the most loyal right-wing voter groups around selected titles, whose financial support, often buying two copies to give one to friends, was seen as a form of political struggle.
In this mode, right-wing weeklies achieved relative sales success in the period from Smolensk to 2015. PiS was then losing ground in the mainstream media, and the dominance of the PO-PSL coalition was confirmed in subsequent elections. The entire right was united around such publications as Gazeta Polska – particularly important for the Smolensk tendency – the Karnowski brothers' Uzywam Rze or Sieci. However, the formula of a completely identity-oriented journalism, which felt obliged to challenge Tusk, the “liberal salon”, “leftism” or “homolobism” in every text, was exhausted before the political pendulum swung in favor of PiS in 2015.
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When this happened, the right-wing media entered a second model: the state supplier. They didn't need to worry about the readers, they started focusing on the political decision makers of the ruling party. It was up to them whether friendly media would accept money from state-owned companies or, for example, the Justice Foundation's ads, regardless of their inaccessibility.
At the same time, PiS was never able or willing, considered unnecessary, to exploit power rents and support the circles it was close to in a truly strategically well thought-out way. So that we build a big, massive, conservative tool.
Kaczynski took the path of least resistance here: with an independent majority in the Sejm and a president of his own making, he took over TVP and, with the help of Jacek Kurski, turned it into a strictly party-line media. TVP also fired the most competent journalists from Republika and Telewizja Trwam, leaving these stations with a second group of employees.
You even understand the reasons for the decision of the President of PiS. Initially, TVP had achievements that media built from scratch or, for example, based in the Republic, could not achieve for years, if at all. For many viewers messageAnd TVP still remained the default news program. Their transformation into a PiS propaganda newsletter allowed Novogrodzka voters to immerse themselves in the party's alternative reality, which had previously been deprived of daily contact with a heavy, identity-based right-wing narrative.
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However, there was one problem: such appropriation of public media, which theoretically belonged to the entire society, was sure to anger everyone who was not staunchly in favor of PiS. And contrary to what the leaders of this party probably think, the majority of the public is not. It was clear that when the pendulum swung the other way – and in a democracy this was inevitable – the new majority would receive a very strong social mandate to implement all available means. Radical changes in TVPiS. What we observed in the last weeks of December.
Now PiS is paying the price for cutting corners in the media area. The party has lost TVP and there is no large, truly mass media.
In the long run, the Republic may not be able to cope
I don't believe it originated from the Republic. Today, the station can effectively compete with Polsat News, but this is done in the mode of protecting Czestochowa and extreme mobilization of potential viewers, the most loyal supporters of PiS. However, such mobilization will not last long, its wave will eventually subside, and the audience of the station with it.
Because its journalistic and informational offer is quite modest, also for right-wing recipients. In terms of news, the channel seems very clumsy and crude – Fox News may be more about misinformation than information, but it still looks like a professional news channel. Compared to TVN 24, Polsat News or even the former TVP Info, Republic's website looks semi-amateur. When the mobilization of viewers under the slogan “we gather in the last free media” subsides, they may start to get bored.
Fox News is a distinctly identitarian television channel that sympathizes with Republicans, including the more radical factions of the party. At the same time, the broadcaster has never wanted to be relegated to a subordinate role for any politician — although in Trump's case, it comes close. It was quite the Republican politicians who had to strive for good relations with Fox News, and the station decided whether their message would reach potential voters.
Republika and other media that are currently in the orbit of PiS cannot play a subjective role towards Novogrodzka. Apart from “Do Rzec”, who is also looking at the confederation, they do not represent right-wing voters on whose behalf they could, for example, start holding PiS accountable. They see their mission differently: they work for the return of the “patriotic camp” to power. For non-PiS audiences, such media becomes boring in the long run.
A media confined to a niche of party followers with a statistically older, less educated, poorer electorate will not receive the expansion funds that would allow it to acquire new audiences, nor will it develop an opinion-forming position – even if it features some interesting writers, those who will probably sooner or later be closer to the mainstream The existing titles will be mastered. PiS will go back to lamenting how the media market treats it unfairly, and dream of returning to TVP – but the truth is that the party just slept to build its Fox News and now all that's left is resentment and occupation. Warszawy Plac Powstańców.
(tags translated)Fajer 1