Polskie Radio

The Polish Radio (PR; Polish: Polskie Radio, PR) is a national public-service radio broadcasting organization of Poland, founded in 1925. It is owned by the State Treasury of Poland. On 27 December 2023, the Minister of Culture and National Heritage, due to the President's veto on the financing of the company, placed it in liquidation.^[1]

Polish Radio

Logo used since 2005, updated in 2017
Native name	Polskie Radio S.A.
Company type	Sole-shareholder company of the State Treasury
Industry	Mass media
Founded	18 August 1925 (1925-08-18)
Founder	Zygmunt Chamiec and Tadeusz Sułowski
Headquarters	Al. Niepodległości 77/85, 00–977 Warsaw , Poland
Area served	Poland
Key people	Paweł Majcher (general director)
Products	Broadcasting, radio, web portals
Services	Radio broadcasting
Website	polskieradio.pl

Interval signal used by Polskie Radio since the 1920s

Polish Radio's headquarters in Warsaw

Reach of Polish Radio transmitters on 31 Aug 1939

History

Polskie Radio was founded on 18 August 1925 and began making regular broadcasts from Warsaw on 18 April 1926.

Before the Second World War, Polish Radio operated one national channel – broadcast from 1931 from one of Europe's most powerful longwave transmitters, situated at Raszyn just outside Warsaw and destroyed in 1939 due to invasion of German Army – and nine regional stations:

• Kraków from 15 February 1927
• Poznań from 24 April 1927
• Katowice from 4 December 1927
• Wilno from 15 January 1928
• Lwów from 15 January 1930
• Łódź from 2 February 1930
• Toruń from 15 January 1935
• Warszawa from 1 March 1937 – known as Warszawa II, the national channel becoming Warszawa I from this date
• Baranowicze from 1 July 1938

A tenth regional station was planned for Łuck, but the outbreak of war meant that it never opened.

The invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union led to the destruction of the network in September 1939, with its final broadcast being a performance of Nocturne in C-sharp minor, Op. posth. by Władysław Szpilman. Years later, Szpilman played the same piece for the reopening of the station.^[2]

After the war, Polskie Radio was reconstructed with the assistance of the Soviet Red Army, which valued radio as a propaganda medium.^[2] It came under the tutelage of the state public broadcasting body Komitet do Spraw Radiofonii "Polskie Radio" (later "Polskie Radio i Telewizja" – PRT, Polish Radio and Television). This body was dissolved in 1992, Polskie Radio S.A. and Telewizja Polska S.A. becoming politically dependent corporations, each of which was admitted to full active membership of the European Broadcasting Union on 1 January 1993 with the merger of EBU and OIRT.

Channels

National

• Program 1 (Jedynka – One) – information and adult contemporary music (LW (225 kHz), FM, DAB+ and Internet radio)^[3]
• Program 2 (Dwójka – Two) – classical music and cultural (FM, DAB+ and the internet)^[4]
• Program 3 (Trójka – Three) – rock, alternative, jazz, and eclectic (FM, DAB+ and the internet)^[5]
• Polskie Radio 24 (PR24) – news and spoken-magazines (FM, DAB+ and the internet)^[6]
• Program 4 (Czwórka – Four) – youth oriented (DAB+ and the internet)^[7]
• Polskie Radio Chopin [pl] – Polish classical music (DAB+ and the internet)^[8]
• Polskie Radio Dzieciom [pl] – children programming during daytime, parents magazines in the evening and Jazz music at night (DAB+ and the internet)^[9]
• Polskie Radio Kierowców [pl] – music and information for drivers' (DAB+ and the internet)^[10]
• Polskie Radio Rytm [pl] – polish music (internet only)^[11]

Regional stations

Polskie Radio also operates 17 regional radio stations (operating on FM and DAB+), located in:

• Białystok (Radio Białystok)
• Bydgoszcz (Radio Pomorza i Kujaw)
• Gdańsk (Radio Gdańsk)
• Katowice (Radio Katowice)
• Kielce (Radio Kielce)
• Koszalin (Radio Koszalin)
• Kraków (Radio Kraków)
• Lublin (Radio Lublin)
• Łódź (Radio Łódź)
• Olsztyn (Radio Olsztyn)
• Opole (Radio Opole)
• Poznań (Radio Poznań)
• Rzeszów (Polskie Radio Rzeszów)
• Szczecin (Radio Szczecin)
• Warszawa (Polskie Radio RDC)
• Wrocław (Radio Wrocław)
• Zielona Góra (Radio Zachód)

City stations

Polskie Radio offers city stations in:

• Gorzów Wielkopolski – Radio Gorzów
• Lublin – Radio Freee
• Poznań – MC Radio
• Słupsk – Radio Słupsk
• Szczecin – Radio Szczecin Extra
• Wrocław – Radio RAM
• Zielona Góra – Radio Zielona Góra
• Łódź – Radio Łódź Nad Wartą

All city stations but Radio Szczecin Extra are being broadcast on FM and in Internet, while Radio Szczecin Extra is available only in Internet and via DAB+.

Digital-only

Polskie Radio also offers regional digital-only stations (all operating in Internet and DAB+ only) in:

• Kielce – Folk Radio (folk music)
• Kraków – OFF Radio Kraków (cultural)
• Wrocław – Radio Wrocław Kultura (cultural)
• Opole – Radio Opole 2
• Olsztyn – Radio Warmii i Mazur
• Łódź – Radio Łódź Extra
• Kraków – Radio Kraków Kultura

International

• Radio Poland (known until January 2007 as Radio Polonia) – external broadcasts in Belarusian, English, German, Polish, Russian, and Ukrainian – 1386 AM, HotBird 13, DAB+ (in Poland) and the internet^[12]

Music charts

Polskie Radio Trójka has been compiling Polish music charts since 1982 – in an era before there were any commercial sales or airplay rankings – making them a significant record of musical popularity in Poland. Chart archives dating from 1982 are available to the public via the station's website.^[13]

Notable people associated with Polskie Radio

Czesław Miłosz, recipient of the 1980 Nobel Prize in Literature, worked as a literary programmer at Polish Radio Wilno in 1936.^[14]

See also

• Polish Radio External Service
• Informacyjna Agencja Radiowa
• Polish Radio and Television
• Radio stations in interwar Poland
• Narodowa Orkiestra Symfoniczna Polskiego Radia z siedzibą w Katowicach

Flagship commercial radio stations in Poland:

• RMF FM
• Radio Zet
• Radio Eska

References

1. "TVP, PR i PAP w stanie likwidacji. Nagła decyzja MKiDN". 2023-12-27.
2. Applebaum, Anne (2012). Iron Curtain : The Crushing of Eastern Europe 1944-56. New York: Doubleday. pp. 181–187. ISBN 978-0-7139-9868-9.
3. "Strona główna - Jedynka". PolskieRadio.pl (in Polish). Retrieved 2022-01-07.
4. "Strona główna – Dwójka". PolskieRadio.pl. Retrieved 2022-01-07.
5. "Strona główna – Trójka". PolskieRadio.pl. Retrieved 2022-01-07.
6. "Polskie Radio 24 – nowy portal informacyjny Polskiego Radia". PolskieRadio24.pl. Retrieved 2022-01-07.
7. "Strona główna – Czwórka". PolskieRadio.pl. Retrieved 2022-01-07.
8. "Strona główna – Radio Chopin". PolskieRadio.pl. Retrieved 2022-01-07.
9. "Strona główna – Polskie Radio Dzieciom". PolskieRadio.pl. Retrieved 2022-01-07.
10. "Polskie Radio Kierowców | Strona Główna". radiokierowcow.pl. Retrieved 2022-01-07.
11. "Strona główna – Radio Rytm". PolskieRadio.pl. Retrieved 2022-01-07.
12. "Radio Poland :: News from Poland". external.polskieradio.pl. Retrieved 2022-01-07.
13. "PR Program 3 Music Chart archives (Archiwum Listy Przebojów Programu Trzeciego)". www.lp3.pl (in Polish). Retrieved 2022-01-07.
14. Haven, Cynthia L. (2006). Czesław Miłosz: Conversations. University Press of Mississippi. pp. xxiv. ISBN 9781578068296.

External links

 

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Polskie Radio.

• Polskie Radio Online
• Polskie Radio SA – corporation site
• theNews.pl – Polish Radio broadcasts in English
• Polish Radio News Portal
• Polish Radio News Music and Music Band News