From: antenna@well.sf.ca.us (Robert Horvitz) Newsgroups: rec.radio.noncomm,soc.culture.polish Subject: Notes on Broadcast Reform in Poland (part 1) Keywords: Poland, regulation, glasnost Date: 4 Jan 91 03:06:48 GMT Organization: Whole Earth Review As some of you may recall, I recently spent two weeks in Poland gathering information about the emergence of new and independent broadcasting stations. Over the next week or so I will post a few excerpts from my report, mostly notes from meetings with various station heads, government officials or journalists. Your comments and criticisms are most welcome. Please let me know about any mistakes, errors, misinterpretations, misspellings, etc. ...preferably by email. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 20 November meeting with Philomena Grodzicka and Zbyszko Kupczyk, both Chief Engineers in the Polish Ministry of Communications, Office of Spectrum Management: More than 300 applications for radio and television broadcasting licenses have been received. About 1/3 are for television, 2/3 for radio. Applicants include churchs, political parties, groups of journalists, city councils, business firms, "young people who think broadcasting is adventure," and many partnerships hard to characterize. The only labor union applying is Solidarity, and these days it is more a party than a union. Less than 20 applications came from newspapers. Some applicants filed for licenses in more than one locale. There will be no limits on the networking of stations, but the PTT wants to maximize diversity of ownership. When they must choose between an applicant that already owns several stations, and a "solitaire," they will be inclined to license the solitaire. Most applicants want to operate in the big cities - Warsaw, Krakow, Gdansk, Wroclaw - or in the region of Silesia. The PTT has decided on power limits for private broadcasters: 100 watts ERP for FM audio broadcasting, 1000 watts ERP for television. They may not be able to license new AM stations because of the megawatt stations already operating in nearby countries, and Poland's limited allotment of channels. Granting a frequency for a 1 kw station in Silesia, say, requires coordination with up to 8 other countries. No decision has been made about authorizing lower-power AM stations. The PTT's understanding of how licensees would be selected is that a special body would be formed by the Minister of Culture to evaluate the applicants in terms of the proposed programming and coverage area. Those found acceptable would be forwarded to the Ministry of Communications, who would either offer to lease them time on an existing "public" transmitter, or assign them a frequency for a privately-owned transmitter. It is likely there will be more qualified applications forwarded to the PTT than there are channels available. The PTT will thus have to devise its own methods for rationing access. They intend to charge fees for spectrum use and for time on their transmitters and relay networks, as these are all "national assets." They say they will try to set prices low enough for leased time on their equipment to make that preferable to buying and operating a private transmitter. Getting new broadcasters to use PTT equipment would ensure they are operating properly, they explain, and make it easier to enforce anti-interference regulations. The "leasing" of frequencies to qualified applicants is "an economic necessity," Kupczyk said. There is interest in the "New Zealand" model, in which leases are auctioned off to the highest bidder. The PTT will definitely not adopt a policy of "first come, first served." Nor will it allow the buying or selling of licenses - or leased transmitter time - in an aftermarket. Churches will get some preference in licensing, perhaps in the form of lower spectrum use fees, and some channels will be reserved for public broadcasting. The spectrum fees paid by private broadcasters will probably vary according to the kind of programming which a given station plans to air, with credits given for educational and religious programming. As for foreign ownership, Mr. Kupczyk would not guess what limit the Parliament might adopt, but he pointed out the European Community limits non-European ownership of a broadcasting firm to 20%, with no limit on intra-European participation. In the United States, broadcasters can apply for auxiliary radio channels: studio-to-transmitter links, and mobile remote origination links for coverage of events outside the studio. According to Mr. Kupczyk, studio-to-transmitter radio links will only be authorized "if there is no alternative." However, some channels will be available for mobile remote newsgathering. No band has yet been picked for the latter. The number of broadcast stations that might operate in any given area without interfering with one another depends not just on the number of channels and transmitters, but on the selectivity of receivers. Unfortunately, Polish TV sets are not very selective. The susceptibility of large numbers of Polish receivers to adjacent- and next-adjacent channel interference makes it hard to know in advance how many more TV assignments could be made. The PTT does not set standards for receiver performance. That is done by a Polish Committee for Standards, and they have set lower standards for receivers than the EBU. Kupczyk does not foresee the standards committee merging with the PTT, but if Poland joins the European Community, eventually it will have to adopt EBU standards. Practically all new audio broadcast licensees will operate in the higher FM band only (88.7-100 MHz), as the lower band used by OIRT nations (66-74 MHz) is phased out. State stations now in the low band will probably be given frequencies in both the low and high bands. They will be allowed to continue using the low band for up to ten more years, since they have so much invested in equipment tuned to those channels. But most imported FM receivers already have both high and low bands, or just the high band, so new stations in the high band will not be broadcasting into a void. Settling the new band will be easy, as it is now almost completely vacant. The post office collects annual license fees for radio and television receivers. This money goes to the Committee for Radio and Television to pay for the broadcasts. The Committee also pays the PTT for the use of transmitting facilities. Will the public be allowed to participate in PTT rule makings, as at the FCC? According to Mr. Kupczyk, the PTT might consult with the most interested government agencies, perhaps even some industry groups, but not the general public. ---Robert Horvitz antenna@well.sf.ca.us -- !.|.!.|.!.|.!.|.!.|.!.|.!.|.!.|.!.|.!.|.!.|.!.|.!.|.!.|.!.|.!.|.!.|.!.| Robert Horvitz 1122-1/2 E St. SE Washington, DC 20003-2232 USA antenna@well.sf.ca.us ...{apple,pacbell,hplabs,ucbvax}!well!antenna