A new media sector
This is when such companies as Gadu-gadu, owner of the most popular Polish instant messenger, and Infor, the publisher of Gazeta Prawna, spotted a niche. Gadu Radio is currently undergoing tests while RadioInfor.pl has already started transmitting - it broadcasts news, invites legal and financial experts for interviews, runs a number of advisory programs, and all this is seasoned with a peppering of easy-listening music.
Marcin Malinowski, head of the new radio station and editor-in-chief of the radio and television department at Infor, is pretty optimistic about the future of the new broadcaster: "According to our prognosis, we'll be able to make a profit by the end of this year. We also estimate that we should have a couple of hundred thousand listeners a month. People value the possibility of having direct contact with an expert. We concentrate on the audience group with strictly defined interests - similar to the readers of Gazeta Prawna," he told WBJ.
According to Tomasz Rybarczyk, the founder of fmonline.org, the market of internet radios is starting to shape into a defined sector. "So far, internet broadcasters have been random creations. Now the market is starting to stabilize - many broadcasters started paying royalties to [Authors' Association] Zaiks and the advertisers also began to notice internet players," he says.
"At the moment we have some hundred contracts signed with radio stations that have been operating exclusively on the internet for a while now and every day a couple of new people, amateurs in the good meaning of the word, come to us and say they want to establish a new station," says Andrzej Kuźmierczyk, head of the licensing and fee-collection department at Authors' Association Zaiks.
"If an internet radio broadcasts music it should sign a contract with Zaiks and pay depending on the amount of music they are going to play. The minimum fee is zł.100 [per year]," he adds.
The long arm of the law
Internet broadcasters have to pay on average five percent of their revenues to Zaiks and those who want to be treated as serious players already do it. They also make sure that DJs stick to the general rules of good taste and conduct, even though the media watchdog has no authority over their activities.
"Internet broadcasters operate beyond the radio and television law and don't need the license of the National Broadcasting Council (KRRiTV), but it doesn't mean they operate beyond the law altogether. Even though the media law doesn't regard them, the press law definitely applies to them, so do the copyright regulations and finally the provisions of the penal code, so just like any other broadcasters they cannot propagate pornography, communist or Nazi content," Wojciech Dziomdziora, a member of the KRRiTV, told WBJ.
Mariusz Truszkowski, co-founder of Team Radio, explains that it is all a matter of brand building. "We have a system of archives and also depend on our listeners to inform us about any irregularities. But problems don't happen very often and when they do we simply ban the troublemakers from the air," he says.
Katarzyna Dębek
Accurate figures for the number of internet radio stations in Poland are elusive. Fmonline.org, a website keeping track of internet broadcasters, counted 278, but these statistics also include traditional radio stations available online. Still, market experts are convinced that internet broadcasters are becoming more and more popular - and businesses have already spotted the trend.
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