In early January, after an eight-year hiatus, Maciej Orłości returned to Teleexpress. For more than half a year, Katarzyna Dowbor and Beata Tadla can be seen on Pytanie na breakfast, and Justyna Dobrosz-Oracz and Dorota Wysocka-Schnepf’s political conversations can be heard on TVP’s current affairs and TVP Info programs. Jarosław Kret will once again announce the weather forecast. In September, TVP viewers will see a “second round” of returns, this time of stars associated with entertainment formats.
After a six-year hiatus, the game show “Name that tune?” is back with its first host, Robert Janowski. He will also be the coach of the sixth season of “The Voice Senior”, which will premiere on TVP2 in January next year. Barbara Kurdej-Szatan, Andrzej Piaseczny and Michał Szpak will also return to Dwójka.
Barbara Kurdej-Szatan disappeared from entertainment programs (she hosted, among others, “I love you Polsko!”, “The Voice of Poland” and “The Voice Kids”) in 2019. She was last seen on TVP2 in late autumn 2021 in the series “M jak miłość”, shortly after the scandal caused by the actress’s entry into the Border Guard broke out (finally, in January 2023, the insult case was dropped). However, contrary to the then president of TVP, Jacek Kurski, about the end of cooperation with her, the star broke off with the team of the series in the summer (filming is done well in advance).
This autumn, Barbara Kurdej-Szatan will host a new program “Wonderful Years”, which will be a family entertainment proposal for Sunday afternoons. (premiering September 8 at 4:15 p.m.)
At the beginning of the new year, Andrzej Piaseczny will return to the coaching chair in the music show “The Voice senior”which he lost in January 2021 after a recording of the artist’s birthday was circulated in the media. It featured vulgar chants known from anti-government demonstrations against PiS.
The singer, who returns to TVP after a three-year hiatus, was the star of the first and second editions of the talent competition for seniors, and has already acted as a coach four times, also on “The Voice from Poland”.
Michał Szpak also returns to the aforementioned musical format. The star, who appeared in four editions of “The Voice of Poland” and disappeared from TVP in 2020, will appear in the 15th edition of the show in the fall, which starts on Dwójka on September 7.
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Will the aforementioned returns of presenters and stars previously associated with TVP translate into an improvement in the image or audience of the public channel? We asked the experts about this. According to Prof. Maciej Mrozowski, a media expert at the University of Warsaw and the SWPS, restoring old faces associated with Polish television will not necessarily help the public broadcaster rebuild its standing or expand its audience.
– This is an attempt to retain or partially win over viewers who have been used to TVP for years and who have started to abandon it because they are perhaps disappointed with it. Unfortunately, this is not a way to acquire new viewers. The generation of millennials and zoomers is a completely different generation that has different faces, different requirements, different expectations and a rather reluctant attitude towards fixed television – notes Prof. Mrozowski.
In your opinion, the return of former TVP stars, which we have observed since the changes initiated by the December decision of the then Minister of Culture, “it serves rather to demonstrate that the management is moving away from the Kurski line”. According to our interlocutor, the fact that the current authorities at TVP are relying on old faces shows a lack of ideas and does not respond to the challenges that the public broadcaster faces today.
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A profound reform of television is needed
– However, eight years is an era in the development of media, in social development and in generational changes. Therefore, this does not solve the problem. It is rather an expression of the lack of ideas about how to escape into the future.. Unfortunately, management is quite focused on the past, hoping that rebuilding what was destroyed will also rebuild audience and standing in the media world, but in my opinion that is not how it works. What is needed is a profound reform of television, technologically, socially and programming-wise, opening it up to completely new areas and people who have so far avoided it. – says media expert.
So what does Polish television need? According to Prof. Mrozowski, not so much new or old faces on air, but new ideas on how to reach viewers.
– We need changes, formats, a new perspective on reality and to open up television to the problems of young people, of the young generation.. There should be areas for new leaders, and within these new leaders there should be new ideas. Unfortunately, I have the impression that the current management is an older generation that, even though it understands the needs of the new generation, does not really know how to meet them – summarizes Prof. Mrozowski.
Prof. Dąbała: We need to look for new faces
Professor Jacek Dąbała, a media expert at Jagiellonian University, when asked about the return of former TVP faces to the air, draws attention to the need to reevaluate the journalists and stars hired by the broadcaster, which he considers crucial.
– The return of each person who has worked in television must simply be audited with the appropriate quality, that is, you cannot hire someone just because they have already worked and now you just have to bring them back to TV. You need to evaluate whether it is still suitable. And something that seems more important to me. You just need to look for new faces and do it actively.with wisdom, insight, openness, responsibility and, above all, with knowledge of things. It cannot be a syndrome of cronyism like this – our interlocutor emphasizes, at the same time warning TVP not to return to being what it was.
– You have to realize that you can’t reheat chops forever. In addition, you also need to answer the question of whether someone is telegenic or whether someone is not famous just because they are famous. After all, there have been and are, miraculously, people in the media who are simply boring, uncharismatic, weak, talentless, charmless, annoying, artificial or intellectually inept, to say the least. It seems to me that this is a powerful role for the so-called media quality audit, the professor notes.
Read also: New TVP Info news program. It will be produced by the “19:30” newsroom
New faces on TVP
In the spring, Telewizja Polska announced the campaign “Get involved! Let’s change together”, which included the search for new presenters, including: in the categories: entertainment, culture and sport. Almost 2,000 people applied for the competition. candidates, and 50 people were invited to the next stage. Four journalists from this group were eventually invited to cooperate: Marta Kubala, Błażej Stencel, Jonasz Zasowski and Maksymilian Zdybicki.
Jonasz Zasowski was the first to debut on TVP, joining the sports editorial team in June. In mid-August, Maksymilian Zdybicki made his debut as a weather forecaster on TVP Info, and Marta Kubala and Błażej Stencel will appear on the screen in September. The latter, together with Agnieszka Dziekan, will host the game show “Wheel of Fortune” in the new season.
