Monika Tkaczyk

The National Broadcasting Council (KRRiT) does not want to permit the series Londyńczycy (Londoners) being broadcast on foreign TV stations. Londyńczycy is a soap opera that depicts the life of Polish immigrants living in London. When Polish Television (TVP) decided to sell Londyńczycy to foreign TV stations, including British ones, the KRRiT appealed in an official letter to this station that “they should desist from” introducing Londyńczycy abroad. The appeal from the KRRiT was a result of not only an article published in Rzeczpospolita but also many complaints from Polish unions and associations. Those unions and associations, quite active in the UK, sent in their complaints at the beginning of November 2008. Polish ex-pats claimed that the series features Polish people involved in quarrels, selling drugs and marital infidelity. “Finally it was noticed that Londyńczycy presents a negative image of not only Polish migrants in the UK but also all our countrymen,” says Monika Tkaczyk from the Poland Street Association of Poles in Great Britain, who first raised an objection against Londyńczycy. However, the possibility of selling the movie rights, which cost PLN 13.5 million, is not regulated by the Broadcasting Act. Witold Kołodziejski, who is head of the National Broadcasting Council, stressed in his letter to TVP that such action is not consistent with the “nature of public media and public policy”. Agnieszka Kępińska-Andryszczak, the producer of the series, did not want to comment on the issue saying that the Londyńczycy copyright belongs exclusively to Polish Television.
Rzeczpospolita