History
In March 1997, Grupa TVN obtained permission from The National Council of Radio Broadcasting and Television to broadcast in central and northern parts of Poland. A few months later Grupa TVN acquired Telewizja Wisła, which had a license to broadcast in southern Poland.
The channel was launched nationwide as TVN on 3 October 1997.[9] In its early months, the high costs of buying foreign content led to TVN trying to find a uniquely Polish strategy for its programming, as both TVP and Polsat had occupied a significant part of the import revenue.[10] One year after its launch, the channel was plagued by low ratings, management issues and regulatory problems, such as the conflicts between ITI and CME and the rescission of its broadcasting license in northern Poland.[11] During the first four years the network was run by its founder Mariusz Walter. In 2001 Piotr Walter became chief executive officer, replacing his father.
In 2004 TVN was available in 86% of Polish households. Since 2004 TVN has been listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange. On 29 April 2004 TVN launched TVN International, an entertainment and news channel for Polish viewers living abroad. In 2005 TVN acquired rights to organise and broadcast Sopot International Song Festival until 2010, and has acquired said rights again from 2017. In 2006 TVN launched its high definition version, TVN HD, which was the first HD television channel in Poland.
TVN is a supporter of the Hybrid Broadcast Broadband TV (HbbTV) initiative that is promoting and establishing an open European standard for hybrid set-top boxes for the reception of broadcast TV and broadband multimedia applications with a single user interface, and conducted the first tests of HbbTV services in Poland in March 2012.[12]
On 16 March 2015, TVN announced a sale of a 52.7% controlling stake to the U.S. broadcaster Scripps Networks Interactive (SNI) for €584 million, subject to regulatory approval.[13][2][3] In July 2015, SNI bought out the remaining owners for €584 million.[4] SNI was, in turn, acquired by Discovery Communications (now Discovery Inc.) for US$14.6 billion, in a sale completed 6 March 2018.[5][6]
Conflict with Law and Justice government (2021)
TVN tends to be strongly critical of the Law and Justice (PiS) party, since it was sworn to power in 2015. Historian and columnist Timothy Garton Ash, writing for The Guardian, praised Fakty TVN 's critical coverage of government issues when harshly criticising Telewizja Polska's Wiadomości (News).[14]"The Facts is not BBC-style impartial: it clearly favours a more liberal, pro-European Poland and is strongly anti-PiS. But unlike the so-called News, it is still definitely professional, high quality, reality-based journalism.[14]"Since 2020 the conflict between TVN and the PiS worsened, to a degree that, by July 2021, a group of PiS lawmakers, submitted to parliament a draft amendment that would prevent companies from outside the European Economic Area taking control of Polish radio and television stations. This would mean that Discovery, the owner of TVN, might be forced to divest its ownership.[15][16]
