Poland to review Paramount takeover of TVN through acquisition of Warner Bros

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Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and is published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.

Poland will examine whether Paramount Skydance can take control of TVN, one of the country’s leading broadcasters, following its acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery, which owns TVN.

The review is being conducted under a law that requires state approval for ownership changes of companies designated by the government as strategic and protected from takeovers deemed to threaten the national interest. TVN was added to the list in 2024, following reports of its possible sale.

Paramount Skydance’s $110 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery, one of the largest mergers in the global media market, brings together major US media assets including Paramount’s CBS and MTV and Warner’s HBO, CNN and Discovery Channel.

After the deal was completed on Tuesday, Poland’s state assets ministry told the Polish Press Agency (PAP) that, because the acquisition would give Paramount Skydance indirect control of TVN, the new owner must notify the ministry of the takeover.

The ministry then has 90 days to “conduct an administrative investigation into this matter to verify the impact of the transaction on security or public order in Poland”.

The ministry can either approve the change of ownership or block the new owner from controlling TVN. In the latter case, the state assets minister, Wojchech Balczun, may order the sale of TVN’s shares.

“I assure you that it will be an entirely substantive and objective administrative procedure, carried out in fulfilment of a statutory obligation, and nothing more,” Balczun told broadcaster Kanał Zero on Tuesday.

The procedure is necessary because the Polish government added TVN and another large private broadcaster, Polsat, to its list of strategic companies in December 2024, bringing them under state protection against takeovers considered aggressive or contrary to the national interest.

That move came amid reports that Warner Bros. Discovery was considering selling TVN and that a businessman linked to Hungary’s then-Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, an ally of Poland’s conservative opposition Law and Justice (PiS) party, was seeking to buy it.

Prime Minister Donald Tusk said at the time the move was intended to protect the broadcaster from hostile foreign takeovers and prevent foreign interference in Poland’s media and elections.

TVN, which was originally founded in 1995, has been in American hands since 2015, when it was bought by US broadcaster Scripps, which was in turn acquired by Discovery in 2018.

The station, which is known for taking a liberal position on many issues, has long been a target for Polish conservatives. In 2021, the then-PiS government passed a law that would have forced Warner Bros. Discovery to sell its majority stake. However, that was vetoed by then-President Andrzej Duda.

Some in Poland have expressed fear that Paramount could push TVN in a more conservative direction, as it has been accused of doing with other media outlets it has acquired, notably US broadcaster CBS.

Paramount’s owner, David Ellison, is a Trump ally, as are PiS and Poland’s current president, Karol Nawrocki.

On Sunday, the Journalists’ Association, a Polish organisation representing journalists, called on TVN’s management to establish an editorial independence council similar to those being created at CNN and CBS under the settlement deal that paved the way for the merger in the US.

In July, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) also raised concerns about the potential impact of the merger on TVN’s editorial independence, citing the new ownership structure and the risk of political interference.

The NGO called for guarantees protecting the channel as a condition of approval for the takeover from the European Commission. The EU executive, however, approved the deal in July without imposing such conditions, following an antitrust review.

The commission’s approval covered the entire European Union, meaning that national competition authorities have no grounds to challenge the deal, Tomasz Chróstny, head of Poland’s consumer protection authority UOKiK, told news service Wirtualna Polska before the transaction was completed.

Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.

Main image credit: Maciek Jazwiecki / Agencja Wyborcza.pl

Alicja Ptak

Alicja Ptak is deputy editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland and a multimedia journalist. She has written for Clean Energy Wire and The Times, and she hosts her own podcast, The Warsaw Wire, on Poland’s economy and energy sector. She previously worked for Reuters.