The head of TVP's main information programme ‘19:30’, editor Paweł Płuska, met with students and staff from the University of Gdańsk to discuss the new information policy of the public media and the state of the Polish media.

‘In “19:30”, we are concerned with showing not only all sides of a political conflict in our materials but also everything that is really happening in Poland,’ said Paweł Płuska. ‘Commercial stations are different from public stations in that in the former the most important thing - so to say in journalistic terms - is whether something is ‘chewy’ or ‘not chewy’. If it's chewy, we give it more, because our ratings will go up. For me, the number of viewers is very important, but I also have to find room for things that are not for everyone, such as culture.'

After the lecture, the participants of the meeting had many questions for the head of ‘19:30’; the students asked, among other things, about the selection of guests invited to programmes on TVP and about the very idea of public media. Dr Monika Białek from the Institute of Media, Journalism and Communication asked Paweł Płuska about his opinion on the merger of TVP and Polskie Radio as a potential solution to reduce the costs of maintaining public media. The head of ‘19:30’ stressed that the worlds of radio and television are two separate modes of communication and that their optimal merger is not possible.

The meeting concluded with two questions about the future of television in light of the dynamic changes in the media world. ‘Who thought just a year ago that artificial intelligence would so powerfully change the world we live in? Who knows what will happen next? Perhaps television will one day end up in a museum, but it is probably not yet today,’ said editor Paweł Płuska.

The meeting was organised by the Institute of Political Science and the Institute of Media, Journalism and Social Communication.