Until 2007, the only religious channel in Poland was TV Trwam, which from the beginning of its broadcasting aroused much controversy among both media experts and ordinary viewers. The station has been repeatedly accused of bias in its news and current affairs programs – which, despite the nature of the channel, constitute the core of the programming.
As they say in an article from 15 years ago, the idea to create a second religious television station was born during conversations between Fr. Kazimierz Sowa and Szymon Hołownia with the founder of TVN, Mariusz Walter, and the management of the ITI Group. Initially, it was planned to call it simply TVN Religia, but for some reasons the concept of the so-called umbrella brand.
It was an innovation on the Polish market. Szymon Hołownia did a really good job
The originators of the station emphasized from the beginning that they did not plan to compete with TV Trwam. They wanted Religia.tv to be something like a “Catholic Discovery”, where everyone will find something interesting for themselves, regardless of whether they are deeply religious or not. When asked why it was decided to launch this station, its head, Fr. Krzysztof Sowa said then:
The goal is to show modern people how valuable religion and the spiritual dimension of life are. Therefore, it is supposed to be an activity aimed at a certain ‘benefit for the spirit’
The channel was launched with great fanfare on October 15, 2007 and initially was available on the n digital platform, owned by ITI Neovision sp. z o. o., a member of the TVN group. At that time, the broadcaster, wanting to attract new subscribers, focused on new quality, creating many interesting and innovative – for Polish conditions – channels. One of them was Religia.tv.
The position of program director from the beginning of the station’s existence was taken by Szymon Hołownia, who managed it until 2012. We can call this period “a time of prosperity” because the schedule included many films and programs of our own production. An important part of the station’s offer were also interactive programs, such as the one broadcast at 10 p.m.Auditorium“, during which the viewer could call the studio and talk to the hosts – who were mainly clergy – on various topics.
TV series and documentaries broadcast at 9 p.m. were also a regular part of the program. The band consisted of both own and foreign productions. One of the most interesting proposals in the series was the “X Church Files“, which presented controversial events in the history of the Catholic Church.
Interestingly, program director Szymon Hołownia did not only deal with “bossing”, but regularly appeared on the air, where he hosted several talk shows. These included: presenting eschatological themes”Ready to die“talking about religious and social issues”God in the big city“, Whether “People on suitcases“, in which Szymon Hołownia talked about suffering with people who have gone through difficult life situations.
Viewers also had the opportunity to watch programs with the participation of the station’s head, Fr. Kazimierz Sowa. He was the host of, among others, journalistic program “Ethics in business“, where ethical issues in economy and business were discussed, or “Property is value“, where issues bordering on ethics and economics were discussed.
There was no publicist, with whom TV Trwam is so associated, but there was a place for the rebroadcast of holy masses, matins and vespers. It is worth emphasizing that Religia.tv was also open to other religions. Services of other Christian Churches and even other religions (including Islam and Buddhism) were often broadcast.
The station expanded its reach over time and also received several awards in its short history. It was mainly given to people responsible for the production of various documentaries created for the channel. However, the most important distinction was the “Ślad” Journalism Award. Bishop Jan Chrapek, which was awarded to Fr. in 2009. Kazimierz Sowa for “creating a modern medium dedicated to religion, culture and spiritual values.”
The station was awarded, but it didn’t do well. Hołownia escaped from the sinking ship
However, all good things come to an end. In the second half of 2012, the Catholic Information Agency announced that, as of January 2013, Religia.TV would no longer produce its own television programs. That’s when Szymon Hołownia and the entire journalistic team he managed left the station’s editorial office.
Reason? Officially, there was talk of “failure to achieve the expected viewership and profitability results.” And according to Hołownia, who wrote a column on this topic in “”, writing that the missionary channel Religia.TV lost the fight against priests’ fear of Father Tadeusz Rydzyk:
However, the Religia.tv channel is not closed by ITI, but by the institutional Church. In extremely difficult times, he could not have received a better gift than private money, for which someone would describe his achievements, prepare catechetical aids, explain the intricacies of teaching, and try to reach a larger, “unaffiliated” (and therefore incapable of e.g. collection campaign) part of the Polish Church. We were a natural ally. Regular priests, aware of what is happening in people’s heads today, understood it perfectly and took full advantage of what we were doing. Among the hierarchs, during these five years, one commented positively about us. Some people told us directly that they support us unofficially, but they won’t even speak out publicly because they are afraid of Rydzyk’s father’s reaction. Others simply persecuted us, because they had already engaged the authority of Christ and the Church in the defense of a politicized faction that equates freedom with its exotic views.
However, the station was not closed at that time. She “ran on fumes” for the next two years, when the schedule was dominated mainly by repeat programs. It is true that in 2013, Father Maciej Zięba joined the station’s editorial staff and together with Fr. Kazimierz Sowa and Ryszard Petru (yes, that Ryszard Petru) co-created the program “Morality and ethics in times of crisis”where invited experts explained the most important phenomena from the world of finance and economics and assessed them from an ethical perspective.
However, it was one of the few own programs produced at that time. The broadcaster also did not sign new contracts with operators for the distribution of the channel, which resulted in the announcement at the end of 2014 that broadcasting would end at the end of January 2015. According to “”, the then president of the ITI Group, Wojciech Kostrzewa, said that “this should not have been a surprise to anyone for a long time.”
Since then, Tadeusz Rydzyk has had a monopoly. In addition, it also has a “partner in crime” in the form of TVP
Since then, there has been no one brave enough to challenge Father Tadeusz Rydzyk and his media empire. Moreover, a year later, after the United Right politicians introduced the so-called good change in TVP and Polskie Radio, the public broadcaster’s offer began to include more religious programs, many of them with a similar narrative to those known from TV Trwam.
However, recently strange hybrids of religious and entertainment programs have begun to appear, in which there are no elements of a public mission and are simply boring. . She definitely didn’t like the production:
Travel is indeed the main theme, but unfortunately it is a journey from nowhere to nowhere – there are too many heroines (as many as three in 25 minutes) to discover why and why they are traveling separately. (…) In the case of ‘Veil, Fury and Bravado’ we won’t really learn anything about their everyday lives. Just like that, one plays the guitar, the second one was on a pilgrimage, the third one devoted a significant part of her airtime to a story about a disco – and then, suddenly, the episode ends. What was that supposed to be? What for?
In the coming months, this program and others of this type will probably disappear from the TVP schedule. But there will still be a gap that no one has filled after the Religia.tv channel, which, in my opinion, was an example of what a religious channel should look like in Polish reality. With room for free discussion, openness to other religions and without presenting unreal reality and political indoctrination, as is the case in the terrestrial TV Trwam.
It is true that in recent years the TBN Polska channel has appeared on the Polish market, but it is an American evangelistic station that is completely unsuited to the Polish audience. The programs broadcast there are hosted by television preachers straight from the movie “The Eyes of Tammy Faye”, in which the creators presented the authentic story of a married couple behind the success of the evangelical media empire in the United States in the last century.
Right now, I don’t want to be a preacher who will say that the chances of change in this matter are slim, but that’s how it looks at the moment. There is a lot of talk about (needed) changes in TVP, but I believe that the “specialized socio-religious program” offered on digital terrestrial television should also change. I think that a channel with an offer like Religia.tv would respond much better to the needs of Polish society and would present life to Poles as it really is.
Source: Gazeta
Bruce is a talented author and journalist with a passion for entertainment . He currently works as a writer at the 247 News Agency, where he has established himself as a respected voice in the industry.
