TVP Info disappeared on Wednesday, December 20. After 11:00, an advertising block was still broadcast, after which TVP 1 appeared in place of the news channel. An animation then appeared, and TV Polonia is currently being broadcast.

The TVP Info website is also not working. Its profiles on Facebook and X (Twitter), however, are active.

Earlier, Minister of Culture Bartłomiej Sienkiewicz dismissed the authorities of TVP, Polskie Radio and PAP, and appointed new supervisory boards in their place, which in turn appointed new management boards of the companies.

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The Minister of Culture and National Heritage, acting as the body exercising the ownership rights of the State Treasury, which holds 100% of the shares in the companies, dismissed, pursuant to the provisions of the Commercial Companies Code, the incumbent presidents of the management boards of Telewizja Polska S.A., Polskie Radio S.A. and Polska Agencja Prasowa S.A., as well as the supervisory boards, on December 19, 2023. The minister appointed new supervisory boards of the aforementioned companies, which appointed new management boards.

The necessity of taking such action, as well as its justification, was established by a resolution of the Sejm of the Republic of Poland of December 19, 2023, concerning the restoration of the rule of law and the impartiality and reliability of the public media and the Polish Press Agency.

The decision to dismiss the incumbent authorities and appoint new ones was made at General Meetings of Shareholders by the owner of the companies, represented by the Minister of Culture and National Heritage, who has full autonomy in making such decisions.

The injunction issued by Julia Przyłębska’s Constitutional Tribunal on December 14, 2023, according to the written position issued by the General Counsel to the Republic of Poland, the body that legally represents the interests of the State Treasury, is legally ineffective and in no way binds either the Minister of Culture and National Heritage or the new management or supervisory boards of the companies.

PiS MPs and current TVP employees are protesting these decisions, consistently claiming that such actions are unlawful and undermine media pluralism in Poland.

PiS MPs spent the previous night in the Telewizja Polska building, where they stood guard in defense of the current TVP. This is how they behaved outside the office of the new chairman of the supervisory board.

The new chairman of the supervisory board, Piotr Zemła, appeared at TVP’s headquarters on Woronicza Street in Warsaw. PiS MPs asked the lawyer “on what basis he had appeared there” and demanded to see the legal basis and an identity document. “Call the police if you believe I am here unlawfully,” Piotr Zemła replied.