Polish state broadcaster TVP has concluded a new agreement with the country’s Catholic episcopate to screen more “programmes and religious messages of the Catholic Church”, including daily Mass on its main channel.
The agreement was signed today by TVP CEO Jacek Kurski and the bishops of Lublin and Częstochowa, Artur Miziński and Wacław Depo, the latter of whom also heads the episcopate’s media council.
Zdecydowanie za mało było do tej pory mszy na antenach TVP. https://t.co/H6ae0uoNsP
— Darek Ćwiklak (@macdac) September 24, 2020
Wednesday’s deal is an update of one from 2008. The episcopate has previously accused TVP of reneging on that agreement by allowing its regional branches to gradually reduce their religious programming, reports Wirtualne Media.
The new agreement will henceforth regulate what news, social and cultural content will be produced by TVP’s editorial office for Catholic programming, and will seek to create additional Catholic content, including on TVP’s news channel.
The deal also includes a daily broadcast of morning Mass at 7 a.m. on TVP1, the broadcaster’s main channel, as well as screening the Chaplet of Divine Mercy, a Christian devotion, at 3 p.m. on TVP3 every day.
Regular televised morning Masses were originally introduced in March this year, when coronavirus restrictions limited church attendance. A number of private Polish broadcasters also regularly transmit Mass, including TV Republika, Polsat and TV Trwam.
The lockdown saw viewing numbers for such programming increase. From 1 January to 8 March, broadcasts of Sunday Mass on TVP were watched by an average of 435,000 viewers. In the period 15 March to 13 April, this increased to a record 1.7 million, reports Wirtualne Media.
The church remains an influential institution in Poland, where 92% of the population are Roman Catholics and almost 70% say that God plays an important role in their life.
In recent years, TVP has been accused of departing from its role as a public broadcaster and instead becoming a tool of the government. Kurski is himself a former MEP from one of Poland’s ruling parties.
Reporters Without Borders notes that “public media have been…transformed into government propaganda mouthpieces”. This has included direct political involvement, such as during this year’s presidential election campaign, but also producing programming that suits the government’s conservative agenda.
Last year, amid an anti-LGBT campaign led by the government and church, TVP broadcast a documentary, entitled “Invasion”, that purported to reveal the “aims, methods and money” behind Poland’s LGBT community.
In June, it was ordered to take down the film from YouTube after a Warsaw court ruled in favour of an LGBT rights group that accused the public broadcaster of violating its rights.
Main image credit: Adam Stepien/Agencja Gazeta
Maria Wilczek is deputy editor of Notes from Poland. She is a regular writer for The Times, The Economist and Al Jazeera English, and has also featured in Foreign Policy, Politico Europe, The Spectator and Gazeta Wyborcza.
