30 years ago Telewizja Polsat was launched. Solorz-¯ak chose “a breakneck way to start television”

The test broadcast of Polsat, and basically PolSat 1 (because that’s what the channel was originally called) started on December 1, 1992, and four days later, at 4:30 p.m. sharp, the channel officially began broadcasting. The first viewers were greeted by the presenter and actor Karina Szafrańska, and the first broadcast program was the animated series “Wędrówki Pyzy”.

Polsat, however, did not broadcast from Poland. At least not from the beginning. The station broadcast a signal from the Netherlands, more precisely from the studio in Hilversum. This was due to the fact that Zygmunt Solorz-Żak, the owner and main founder of the station, had not yet obtained the concession required by Polish law.

At that time, hardly anyone watched a program recorded in Poland on a cassette, which was then sent by plane to the Netherlands, from where the signal was sent to the Eutelsat II satellite. Zygmunt Solorz-Żak chose such a breakneck way to start television, recognizing that it was a good start on the road to the first real, i.e. terrestrial, license

Juliusz Braun, former chairman of the National Broadcasting Council and former president of TVP.

Solorz-Żak’s tactic turned out to be effective. On October 5, 1993, the station received a license for terrestrial broadcasting from the National Broadcasting Council, and at the beginning of 1994 Polsat became the first commercial channel to receive a license for nationwide broadcasting.

Zygmunt Solorz-Zak photo: Kamil Gozdan / Agencja Wyborcza.pl

Others have declarations, we have money. We represent only Polish capital. Other companies have foreign shareholders (…) who will certainly want to sell Polish commercial television, having shares in it, their films at a very high price

– argued Zygmunt Solorz-Żak even before his station was granted a license.

Interestingly, this decision cost the then head of the National Broadcasting Council Marek Markiewicz position. After signing the concession for Polsat Markiewicz, he was dismissed by President Lech Wałęsa with – as later stated by the Supreme Administrative Court – a violation of the law.

Polsat News logo photo. Sławomir Kamiński / Agencja Wyborcza.pl

Zygmunt Solorz-Żak – from smuggling lollipops from Germany to a media baron

Zygmunt Solorz-Żak, who dreamed break the monopoly of public televisionj, was already a regular visitor to Warsaw salons at that time. The entrepreneur from Radom – like many other businessmen – started his career by smuggling goods from the GDR.

Solorz saw what they brought: women’s blouses and lollipops. He could stuff a thousand lollipops into a bag. This is how he got a car – a Polish Fiat 125p in the then fashionable yellow bahama color. He has a passion for cars to this day.

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After 1989, Solorz-Żak, who already had considerable capital, started investing in various industries, mainly commercial. Even before the launch of Polsat He headed the Solpol company, the majority shareholder of “Kurier Polski”. In 1992, the businessman was included in the list of the richest Poles of the “Wprost” weekly for the first time.

13 police office frame from the movie

From disco polo to media hegemon

Why Polsat? At this point, it is best to give the floor to the person who came up with the name, and it was the satirist Tadeusz Drozda.

We have to go to this Astra and write something on paper, what kind of television it is supposed to be. You know how to type, then sit down and write. Well, I wrote four pages that it would be for children, and this is football, and this is such a f*ck in bamboo, whatever. Something that must be on every TV is for it to be.

– Drozda recalled his conversation with Solorz-Żak

And I wrote that if television is to be sent to Poland via satellite, I would suggest the name Polsat

added the satirist.

POLSAT BOXING NIGHT photo. Małgorzata Kujawka / Agencja Wyborcza.pl

In launching the first commercial station of the Third Republic of Poland, Solorz – apart from Drozda, who is supposedly still waiting for a fee for the name – also helped Solorz Wieslaw Walendziak. It was he who became the first program director, and then the general director of the station. However, he did not stay in Polsat for too long, because in March 1993 he became the president of TVP.

Initially, Polsat broadcast its program only for 4 hours a day – in the afternoon and night blocks. Later, the emission was extended to 8, and from October 1, 1994 – to 16 hours a day. From 2003 to the end of 2009, the channel broadcast 23 hours a day, and since the beginning of 2010 the program has been broadcast around the clock.

Since 1993, we could watch the first Polish broadcast on Polsat talc–show “Everything”. They made their debut in the same year “Information” (later replaced by “Events”), the first commercial news program. What Polsat was most associated with in the 1990s, however, was disco-polo music. This cultural phenomenon was quickly picked up by the station’s owners, resulting in programs such as “Disco Polo Live” or “Disco Relax”.

The end of the 90s is also a game show “Go for it” with Zygmunt Chajzer and popular sitcoms – “13th Precinct”, “Honeymoons”, “Foster family”and “The world according to the Kiepskis. The latter production stayed on the air for over 20 years.

The world according to the Kiepskis frame from the series ‘Świat according to the Kiepskis’ / screen youtube.com/PolsatBoxGoPL

Poland World Champion

At the end of the 1990s, Polsat began to invest more and more in its sports offer. It started with boxing. In 1998, the station broadcast the fight of Andrzej Golota with Tim Witherspoon, which was watched by 13 million viewers. Later, Solorz-Żak also dreamed of football.

The opportunity to launch a sports channel appeared in Polsat in 1998, when the president of Solorz saw how TVP ruined the competition by broadcasting the football World Cup in France

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The president got his way before the football World Cup in 2002, i.e. the first World Cup since 1986, for which the Polish national team qualified. Polsat bought exclusive rights to broadcast this event. It was only huge social and political pressure that finally made the station share the sublicense with TVP, although we could only watch selected matches on the air of the public broadcaster.

Maciej Silski in the ‘Idol’ program Still from ‘Idol’ / FremantleMedia Polska

After 2000, already bitten by e.g. by TVN, the station was also looking for a way to peel off the patch of “disco-polo television”. In this, Polsat helped, among others,. “Idol” – a musical talent show that “produced” such stars as Ania Dąbrowska or Monika Brodka. It is also thanks to this format that the star of Kuba Wojewódzki shone.

Cyfrowy Polsat and all the rest

The development of the program offer was followed by the development of the business. Still in 1997, he started Polsat channel 2and in 1999 they appeared first themed stations. In the same year, Polsat launched the second satellite platform in Poland – Polsat 2 Cyfrowy (later Cyfrowy Polsat, and currently – Polsat Box).

Currently, the Polsat Plus Group includes:

• Polsat Box (Cyfrowy Polsat) – the largest satellite platform in Poland;
• Netia – telecommunications operator;
• Plus (Polokomtel) – mobile network operator;
• Polsat (Telewizja Polsat);
• Polsat Box Go – VOD platform);
• Interia – Internet portal;

Zygmunt Solorz-Żak himself, who today serves as the chairman of the Supervisory Board of Telewizja Polsat, in 2020 and 2021 was ranked first in the ranking of the richest of the “Wprost” weekly. This year, however, he fell to the lowest step of the podium. They overtook him Thomas Biernacki (owner of the Dino chain) and an industrialist Michal Solowow.