Have you lost access to TVP1, TVP2 and TVP Info? It was not Tusk who disconnected the cable. But you may need to replace your TV

. On the night from Monday to Tuesday, the second and final stage of switching took place, which covered the following voivodeships: Warmian-Masurian, Podlaskie, Masovian, Lublin, Świętokrzyskie, Lesser Poland and Podkarpackie.

At this point, it is worth clearly pointing out that the recently completed change in the broadcasting standard applies only to households that received terrestrial television from an antenna. Therefore, it has no impact on those who use cable and satellite television.

Nevertheless, experts estimate that as a result of the completed changes, up to 200,000 households could have lost access to Polish Television channels. This applies to owners of older TV sets that do not support the DVB-T2/HEVC standard.

How to check if your TV needs to be replaced?

The easiest way is to turn on one of the channels that broadcast on the MUX-3 multiplex. This includes TVP1, TVP2, TVP3, TVP Info, TVP Sport and TVP Historia. If instead of an image we see a black screen or information about the lack of signal, it means that our receiver probably does not support the DVB-T2 standard.

The oldest TV sets will still run channels from the MUX-8 multiplex (Nowa TV, Metro, Zoom TV and WP), because this multiplex currently operates in the old broadcasting standard. Popular commercial channels, such as Polsat and TVN, switched to DVB-T2 last year.

Currently, all TV sets available in stores (even the cheapest ones) support DVB-T2 television. So there is no risk of buying a receiver that will not work in the new standard. An alternative to replacing the receiver is to buy a decoder, which costs around PLN 100-150.

Is TVP’s broadcast favored in the election campaign?

TVP channels were supposed to switch to the new broadcasting standard last year, along with commercial channels. However, the former head of the Ministry of Interior and Administration, Mariusz Kamiński, then submitted a request to the Office of Electronic Communications to extend this deadline, which he explained, among others, war in Ukraine.

UKE has given consent to broadcast TVP channels in the old standard until the end of 2023. This decision was criticized by commercial stations and opposition politicians, who suggested that it would be one of the ways to favor the government message coming from Telewizja Polska channels in the election campaign.

During the election campaign, some recipients in Poland will only receive party and government television signals

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Replacement of the receiver without any additional payment from the state

In 2022, households using older TV sets could benefit from a government subsidy program for the purchase of new equipment. It was PLN 100 for a new decoder/tuner or PLN 250 for a new TV.

– 543,724 households benefited from subsidies under the program and received financial support worth over PLN 68 million. These subsidies enabled the purchase of 450,372 set-top boxes and 93,352 TV sets – the Chancellery of the President of the Media Council reported in March.

This year, however, such a subsidy program is no longer in force, which means that any replacement of equipment must be done on your own.