Poland will revamp its public media by changing their status and also reduce foreign stake in local private media, a heavyweight in the new government said on Sunday. Culture Minister Piotr Glinski told the PAP news agency that attempts to buy out foreign shareholding in private media groups would start very soon, possibly by the end of the year.
Glinski said that public media would be turned into national cultural institutions from their current status of state-owned businesses.
"We want to change ownership patterns in the local press," he said. "Like in the banking sector, we could buy back media bodies from foreign owners and if it is possible, create our own institutions."
"Public media should really become public with a mission," with a single person at the helm, like at the national museum or the national opera, he said.
Foreign stakes, especially German, are common in private Polish media. The reforms will be overseen by the former head of PAP and public radio, Krzysztof Czabanski, he said.
Poland's new conservative Prime Minister-designate Beata Szydlo, whose eurosceptic Law and Justice (PiS) party won the October 25 election, is due to be sworn in on Monday.
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