COMMERCIAL channel Polsat is to look elsewhere for a partner in its planned 24-hour news channel. It had been hoped that the ITN-EBU venture Euronews would give much needed support to the channel after an initial contract was signed last year. However, members of the EBU voted against the proposal.

“Our plans were blocked by Telewizja Polska, which is not even a partner in Euronews,” complained Bogusaw Chrabota, Polsat’s programming manager. He added the decision does not prevent Polsat from seeking other partners or going it alone.

Since April capacity reserved for Polsat 2 Info has been occupied by TV4, the new joint venture between the Polsat Group and Nasza TV, it is also available in-the-clear to subscribers to the Wizja TV package.

“The natural Polish partner of Euronews is the public broadcaster TVP,” said TVP head of corporate affairs Pawe Sosnowski, “We deliver our reports to the Euronews network. It would be strange of it appeared on a commercial channel. Euronews’ broadcasts in Poland are a part of the Cyfra+ package in which TVP is a partner.

This is the second blow for Polsat in recent weeks. Following a ruling by the KRRiT Polsat has ceased transmission of the four public TVP channels from its digital package. It has however established co-operation on its news channel from the Polish publisher Infor, though hopes of a tie-up with CNN have been ruled out because of the network’s established relationship with TVN and Radio Zet.