Polish Radio

Polskie Radio is Poland’s national public service radio broadcaster, established in 1925. Since December 2023 it has operated under the legal name Polskie Radio S.A. w likwidacji, a company in liquidation, with Paweł Majcher as liquidator; the State Treasury holds all of its shares and the Minister of Culture and National Heritage exercises the shareholder’s rights. It operates national and thematic radio channels, a foreign service, and online and on-demand services. The 17 regional radio broadcasters and the city stations they run are separate state-owned companies, each placed into liquidation in its own right in December 2023, and are not assets of Polskie Radio S.A.

Media assets

National and thematic radio: Jedynka, Dwójka, Trójka, Czwórka, Polskie Radio 24, Polskie Radio Chopin, Polskie Radio Dzieciom, Polskie Radio Kierowców and Polskie Radio dla Ukrainy

Foreign service: Polskie Radio dla Zagranicy, with Polish, English, German, Belarusian, Russian and Ukrainian language services. Its output includes the international Radio Poland and Radio Polsha streams

Production units: Teatr Polskiego Radia, Studio Reportażu i Dokumentu Polskiego Radia, Radiowe Centrum Kultury Ludowej and Orkiestra Polskiego Radia w Warszawie

Digital: polskieradio.pl, podcasts, the broadcaster’s mobile application and the English-language Radio Poland news service

Ownership and governance

Public broadcasting in Poland, including TVP and Polskie Radio, is regulated by the Broadcasting Act of 1992, amended over time. Polskie Radio functions as a state-owned joint-stock company, with a registered share capital of PLN 16.4 million. The National Broadcasting Council (KRRiT) is a five-member constitutional regulator, distinct from the National Media Council (RMN), the body created in 2016 to appoint public-media leadership.

The legal provisions adopted in 2015 and 2016 that changed the governance structures of the public media affected Polskie Radio in the same way as TVP, giving the government control over staffing and management. Agnieszka Kamińska was appointed president of Polskie Radio in January 2020 by the RMN, succeeding Andrzej Rogoyski.

After the elections of 15 October 2023 the coalition of the Civic Coalition, Third Way and The Left, led by Prime Minister Donald Tusk, began reforming the public media. In late December 2023 President Andrzej Duda vetoed a bill on state media subsidies, describing the coalition’s actions as an illegal seizure of public media. On 27 December 2023 the culture minister placed TVP, Polskie Radio and the Polish Press Agency into liquidation, and on 29 December 2023 the minister extended the same decision to the seventeen regional radio companies.

Majcher had been appointed president of Polskie Radio on 19 December 2023, when the ministry named a new supervisory board; the shareholders’ meeting then appointed him liquidator by resolution of 27 December 2023, and the liquidation was entered in the company register in April 2024. Kamińska was removed in December 2023 and struck from the register at the same time. Under the Commercial Companies Code the company has neither a management board nor a president, the liquidator performing those functions.

Polskie Radio identifies Olga Sztejnert-Roszak, Tomasz Kapliński and Jakub Bartosiak as its Supervisory Board. The commercial register continues to record Grzegorz Kłoczko, Janusz Niedziela and Magdalena Niegierewicz, reflecting the unresolved registration dispute following the December 2023 governance changes. The company and the Ministry of Culture recognise the board appointed through the State Treasury shareholder, while the legal consequences of competing appointments remain contested.

Polskie Radio’s last agreed public-service performance charter covered 2020 to 2024 and was amended in October 2022. No successor charter for 2025 to 2029 had been agreed at this update. The KRRiT continued to assess annual programme-financial plans and public-mission reports against statutory obligations and earlier charter commitments, while maintaining that new long-term arrangements required resolution of the governance and financing disputes.

Karol Nawrocki, supported by Law and Justice, succeeded Duda as President on 6 August 2025. His frequent use of the presidential veto has complicated the Tusk government’s legislative agenda, including efforts to reform public media. A draft amendment to the Broadcasting Act published in December 2025 would abolish the licence fee, abolish the RMN and transfer its powers to an enlarged KRRiT, and provide for single-person management boards appointed by the regulator on the recommendation of a competition committee. The bill had not been sent to the Sejm by September 2026. The European Commission’s 2026 Rule of Law Report, dated 17 July 2026, records that the liquidation initiated in 2023 is ongoing with liquidators appointed directly by the Minister of Culture, and that the governance of public service media structures continues to reflect political choices.

In a review of the first half of 2026 the KRRiT described the liquidation as nominal, stating that no actual liquidation measures were being taken while the companies continued to broadcast, hire staff, commission programmes and plan investments, and recorded that its chair had asked prosecutors in April 2026 to examine whether those responsible were performing their duties, with no investigation opened at the time of writing. The regulator’s own standing is contested: both chambers of parliament rejected its 2025 annual report, in July and September 2026, and the president declined to confirm the expiry of its members’ terms.

Source of funding and budget

Polskie Radio is funded through the licence fee, state-budget transfers and commercial revenue. Under the Licence Fees Act of 2005 the KRRiT determines the level of the fee each year, not later than 30 June, and distributes the proceeds among the public broadcasting companies. Low collection has made state-budget transfers the larger source. According to the European Audiovisual Observatory, Polskie Radio operated with a budget of EUR 67.2 million in 2022.

Public broadcasters have been funded directly from the state budget since early 2024, after the presidential veto at the end of 2023 of the act that would have compensated them for uncollected licence fees; compensation had previously been paid from 2020 in treasury bonds, which the companies sold back to the State Treasury.

Polskie Radio’s audited 2025 statutory accounts recorded total revenue of PLN 414.56 million, including PLN 411.06 million in sales revenue, and a net profit of PLN 9.48 million, compared with a PLN 15.43 million loss in 2024. Operating expenses were PLN 399.57 million. The company employed 1,172 people at the end of 2025, thirteen fewer than a year earlier.

The separate public-mission report recorded PLN 428.8 million in revenue on its reporting basis, including PLN 148.3 million in licence-fee income, PLN 208.31 million in Culture Ministry support, PLN 14.06 million in Foreign Ministry support and PLN 41.7 million in own revenue. Licence-fee income had been PLN 39.41 million in 2024 and Culture Ministry compensation PLN 283.14 million, the difference reflecting the regulator’s suspension of transfers between January and September 2024. Within own revenue, advertising accounted for PLN 20.53 million and sponsorship for PLN 2.89 million. The net cost of the public mission was PLN 391.52 million against PLN 382.36 million in 2024. On the public-mission report’s basis the licence fee supplied about a third of revenue in 2025 and under a tenth in 2024, with ministry compensation the larger public source in both years.

The KRRiT transferred PLN 59.3 million to Polskie Radio from licence-fee proceeds in the first half of 2026, within PLN 241.3 million distributed to the public broadcasters, and the Culture Ministry transferred a further PLN 150 million. A second ministry grant of PLN 21.17 million followed in the first week of October 2026, under an agreement of 26 February 2026, for mission costs through 31 December.

On 30 July 2026 the Supreme Administrative Court dismissed Polskie Radio’s cassation appeal in a dispute over the KRRiT’s handling of licence-fee advances of more than PLN 90 million for the period 11 January to 11 June 2024. The ruling upheld the rejection of the broadcaster’s claim that the regulator had unlawfully failed to act in that proceeding. It did not resolve the wider dispute over the broadcaster’s governance or future financing; a separate judgment of May 2025 had found inaction and ordered nearly PLN 26.6 million paid.

The pending bill would set a floor of PLN 2.5 billion a year from the state budget for public broadcasting as a whole, indexed for inflation, transferred by the finance minister to an account managed by the KRRiT for distribution among the companies.

The regulator refused Polskie Radio’s 2025 public-mission report, citing deviations from its recommendations on the performance charters and from the approved programme-financial plans, and applied the same refusal to TVP, Radio Łódź and Radio Zachód while accepting the reports of fifteen other public broadcasters. It has begun agreeing the 2027 programme-financial plans, with decisions due by 15 December 2026, and has set 2027 licence-fee rates below the statutory maximums.

Editorial independence

The Broadcasting Act requires public broadcasters to respect pluralism, impartiality, balance and editorial autonomy. Polskie Radio also has binding professional ethics rules and a fifteen-member Programme Council, chaired by Jan Ordyński since April 2025, which assesses programming and represents social interests in the broadcaster’s activities. Ten of its members are nominated by parliamentary groups and five chosen by the RMN from proposals submitted by media and culture organisations. These mechanisms provide formal professional and public-service safeguards, but do not constitute an independently elected journalists’ news council. Their effectiveness in protecting newsroom autonomy remains contested, particularly under the unresolved governance arrangements introduced after December 2023.

The government exerted heavy influence over the editorial affairs of Polskie Radio for years. The reforms of 2015 and 2016 gave the governing party the power to reshape employment structures, and large numbers of journalists and newsroom managers were dismissed or replaced; journalists supportive of the governing party were installed in their place. Reporters Without Borders described the Polish public media, Polskie Radio among them, as government propaganda mouthpieces during those years, when party loyalists occupied senior management positions.

After the October 2023 elections the new management reinstated some journalists dismissed under the previous government and rebalanced programming.

The KRRiT published a monitoring study of Polskie Radio’s current-affairs output covering 16 to 27 March 2026, examining 50 editions of three interview programmes: 20 of Sygnały dnia on Jedynka, 20 of 24 pytania on Polskie Radio 24 and 10 of Bez uników on Trójka. It found a lack of impartiality and pluralism, with a clear dominance of one political perspective and selective choice of subjects; it recorded that matters inconvenient for the governing camp were marginalised, including healthcare, public debt, unemployment and the fulfilment of election promises, and that critical assessments of President Nawrocki and of opposition circles appeared considerably more often than critical assessments of government representatives. It also found that presenters at times acted as participants in political disputes rather than as moderators, using emotionally charged wording and treating interviewees differently according to their political views, and that guests’ statements were rarely verified or set against other views.

The regulator’s findings concern the selected current-affairs programmes and do not establish the editorial character of Polskie Radio’s entire output. The European Commission’s 2026 assessment acknowledged improvements in public-media content since 2023 while identifying continuing risks to impartiality and institutional independence.

Classification rationale

Polskie Radio remains classified Independent State Funded and State Managed/Owned (ISFM), provisionally.

The broadcaster is wholly owned by the Polish State Treasury and receives most of its financing through public sources, including licence-fee revenue distributed by the National Broadcasting Council and direct budgetary support from the Culture Ministry. Its governance remains unsettled following the replacement of management in December 2023 and the company’s entry into liquidation.

The system of political control exercised under the former Law and Justice government was displaced when the State Treasury shareholder appointed new management and a liquidator. However, the National Media Council established in 2016 continues to exist, and the current leadership has not been appointed through an independent competitive procedure. The discrepancy between the supervisory board identified by Polskie Radio and the members recorded in the commercial register reflects the continuing dispute over the company’s governance.

The broadcaster has formal editorial safeguards, including professional ethics rules and a Programme Council, but their effectiveness in protecting newsroom autonomy remains uncertain. The National Broadcasting Council’s monitoring of three current-affairs programmes in March 2026 found one-sided political coverage and insufficient pluralism. The European Commission’s 2026 Rule of Law assessment recognised a reduction in biased and polarising public-media content since 2023 while identifying continuing risks to institutional independence.

These findings establish concerns about editorial balance and politically exposed governance, but do not conclusively demonstrate a sustained editorial line imposed or approved by the incumbent state authorities. The evidence therefore supports retaining ISFM rather than assigning State-Controlled status at this review.

The classification remains provisional because Polskie Radio continues to operate in liquidation, its governance arrangements remain disputed, no successor to the 2020 to 2024 public-service performance charter has been agreed, and the proposed media legislation intended to establish new appointment and financing safeguards had not been enacted by October 2026.

October 2026