High-quality, engaging stories and impressive visual effects, TVP' successful formula

Polish Public Television (TVP) is Poland’s largest and longest-running television network that, combines the ambitions and the enthusiasm of the young generation with many years of experience and expert knowledge. Aleksandra Kaźmieruk, Head of Global Distribution at the company, spoke with Señal News about the current content consumption in Poland, described the most popular Polish titles in the country and anticipated their highlight productions for this year.

TVP is Poland’s largest television broadcaster that constantly adapts its programming offer to the expectations of viewers and market requirements. What are the viewers' expectations nowadays in Poland?
"Viewers in Poland, and I believe it applies to other countries as well, have a constant appetite for high-quality productions, engaging stories, and impressive visual effects. The bigger the offer is available, the higher expectations appear. With the growing presence of global streaming services in the territory, Polish viewers also look for more comfort, flexibility, and better ‘user experience’ while watching content on various platforms via available devices. In terms of content, Polish people still choose local productions over foreign ones but in my opinion, a good balance between local and global content is also appreciated. In terms of drama for instance, in the first week of January 2024, the highest viewership was achieved by TVP’s long-running local show (1st episode was aired on 4th November 2000!) 'L for Love' – 24,28% in 4+. It is a family saga followed by Polish people for over two decades. The second place belongs to the newest, high production value espionage TVP series 'The Bay of Spies' (18,59% in 4+) in which the viewers follow Franz Neumann, a young Nazi Abwehr officer, who becomes a spy for the Allies. The third place in the viewership listing was taken by TVP’s series 'For Better or For Worse' medical show watched since 1999! I am sure that it won’t be a surprise that other most appreciated formats are sports events and news."

On the other hand, what are the main market international requirements currently?
"Apart from what has just been said about the constant need for high-quality, engaging stories, I have observed that the clients I work with, mostly broadcasters or streaming platforms, prefer content that can be easily localized to their language and culture – this is reflected in higher interest in remake and format rights and in terms of the ready-made titles - availability of subtitles and/or dubbing may be decisive especially high volume ones with VOD platforms or FAST channels."

TVP is also a prolific producer of original content. What were your highlighted productions during 2023 and in what new titles do you have in pipeline?
"The beginning of 2023 started with presenting to the world the feature film 'Filip' by Michał Kwieciński, about a Jewish young man who tries to survive war living in the heart of Nazi Germany. 'Filip' was sold to multiple territories all over the world, has global exposure on one the biggest VOD platform in the industry, and is the most wanted film from our catalogue to be presented at the festivals and screenings especially devoted to Jewish culture and history. Another worth mentioning title is 'Moth Hunting' by Michał Rogalski – a 7-episode historical, costume drama about a young girl entangled with independence activity in 1905 in Warsaw. In the second half of the year the feature film 'The Pilecki Report' by Krzysztof Łukaszewicz about Captain Witold Pilecki who, according to many historians was among the most important conspirators of WWII. The film premiered in the Museum of Victims of Communism in Washington DC and is also available globally on Netflix. But in our line up we also had such gems as 'Camper', a travel and adventure reality show, which won the pitching contest Pitch and Play Live! during Natpe Budapest 2023 and costume and history series drama based on the Polish Positivism literature 'Under the Old Oak Tree' by Filip Zylber with another great creation of Michalina Olszanska ('Ja', 'Olga Hepnarova', 'Mathilde', 'The Lure')."

What balance can you do about 2023 and what are the expectations for this year?
"Last year was pretty intense as far as international sales are concerned. I will just mention a few examples of the effects of our work as it is impossible to enumerate all of them here. TVP’s team managed to close several package deals covering dozens of titles (totalling almost 300 hours) in the LATAM and MENA territories. Apart from 'Filip', as mentioned before, the second most popular feature film for our clients was 'March 1968' by Krzysztof Lang. We started the cooperation with GoQuest Media company for distribution of our crime TV series 'Erinyes' and 'Crusade'. We continued cooperation with broadcasters from CEE delivering more TV shows such as 'Wartime Girls', 'The Crown of The Kings', 'Our Century', and 'Paths to Freedom'. In addition, TVP signed an output deal with a renowned Spanish distributor. As for 2024 expectations, well, the dynamically changing media environment writes its tales of the unexpected quite fast these days but we certainly have a lot of faith in our new TV series 'The Bay of Spies'. This will be our highlight for the first quarter but also we will present another great 13-episode show 'Mathilde' by Krzysztof Lang about a young rebel, the daughter of a participant in the January Uprising. The line-up will not consist of costume dramas only, we will also have a contemporary, romantic comedy of manners about mature friendship and love that comes unexpectedly regardless of age and a blood-curdling documentary series about the work of the surgeons."