The head of the National Broadcasting Council announces the amount of fees for granting licenses for the distribution of radio and television programs under the Broadcasting Act and the announcement of the Chairman of the Central Statistical Office of January 15, 2024 on the average annual price index for consumer goods and services in general. The relevant document signed by Chairman Świrski was published in Monitor Polski. Licenses are issued for ten years and broadcasters usually pay for them in annual installments.
The most expensive broadcast of digital terrestrial television
Analogue terrestrial radio broadcasts cannot cost more than PLN 18,923,359 in 2025 (PLN 16,986,889 in 2024 and PLN 14,848,679 in 2023). The fee for a nationwide DAB+ licence cannot exceed PLN 9,461,700 (in previous years: PLN 8,493,447 and PLN 7,424,341). A satellite or cable licence for a radio station will cost a maximum of PLN 774 (previously PLN 694 and PLN 606).
The maximum license fee limit for digital terrestrial television multiplex nationwide will be PLN 39,774,617 (previously PLN 35,704,324 and PLN 31,210,073). A satellite TV license will cost no more than PLN 15,369 (PLN 13,796 and PLN 12,059). The fee for a cable TV license will be up to PLN 3,077 (PLN 2,762 and PLN 2,414). We recently reported that the National Broadcasting Council has also increased the fee for registering a broadcaster in the register of operators. Until now it was PLN 141 and from January it will be PLN 158.
The maximum fee ranges influence their values, but in practice they are much lower. In recent months, the regulator decided that 10-year licenses for ViDoc TV, Republika and wPolsce24 will cost the winners of the competitions for seats in the eighth multiplex PLN 17,852,161 (payable in 10 installments of over PLN 1,785 million). The fees would have been lower if the stations had been in the MUX in previous years. In connection with the broadcast issued in December last year According to the new TVN license, the broadcaster will have to pay PLN 15,605,036 million in installments. The Polsat license from October 2023 is worth the same amount. The TVN7 license issued in February 2022 requires a lower fee of PLN 14,859,271. The Antena HD broadcaster has to pay even less (PLN 14,359,573). The decision was made in March 2021.
Terrestrial broadcasting is expensive, but there are many people interested
The license fee is not the only expense related to broadcasting. To this must be added more than PLN 6 million annually for Emitel, the operator of digital terrestrial television multiplexes, and programming costs. Although in many countries the number of traditional TV channels is decreasing in favor of VoD services and FAST stations, terrestrial broadcasting is still very popular in Poland. It allows you to reach almost every third household.
In this year’s competition for two vacancies at MUX-8, applications were submitted for four stations. Due to the election of the Republic and Poland24 The bids from PTV (TV2 Media) and Polska 24 (Polskie Wolne Media – MWE Networks Group) were lost.
The Chairman of the National Broadcasting Council announced the installation of MUX-5 for digital terrestrial television. However, before this can happen, the Office of Electronic Communications will have to organize a competition for the operator of the fifth multiplex. The following companies are interested in this role: Emitel, BCAST and MWE Teleport.
