President of the Office of Competition and Consumer Protection has initiated an investigation procedure, in line with its competence, following complaints submitted by the subscribers. The National Broadcasting Council is supporting these actions as it is of the view that it is necessary to establish urgently whether the collective interest of consumers has been violated. In the Council’s opinion, the clients of satellite platforms should have a legal guarantee that their contracts valid on fixed terms throughout the contract duration, and no business success can either be made at the expense of the viewers or limit their socio-cultural needs.
The National Broadcasting Council can see the need of building a consumer market of paid television services, which would offer a wider variety of options in terms of selecting programme service packages, as well as the need of being able to make individual decisions regarding the sequence in which the programmes are to be received.
Complying with the good practice in contacts with clients is a prerequisite that judicial decisions refer to (amongst others the judgement of the Gdańsk Court of Appeal of 6 November 1996, ref. number I ACr 839/96). A lack of respect for viewers, expressed by the one-sided imposition of the company’s will, has led to the social protest. On Facebook, the subscribers created a protest profile, which has attracted over 65,000 users over a short time.
In order to eliminate any previous doubts concerning the obligation of programme retransmission (Art. 43 section 1 of the Broadcasting Act), the National Broadcasting Council published a standpoint on 17 November 2011 in which it emphasized in particular that TVP1, TVP2, TVP SA regional programme, Polsat, TVN, TV4 and TV PLUS should be available in every package offered and in particular as part of the basic tier
(cheapest).
Council Chairman
