APPROVED FOR RELEASE: 2009/06/16: CIA-RDP01-00707R000200070023-3
FIGURE 54. Radio and TV programing, by type of program, 1970 (U/OU) (chart/graph)
programs of local interest. In 1970 Warsaw television inaugurated a second channel, devoted entirely to educational and special interest programs.
The declining percentage of total TV subscribers in urban areas indicates the rapid growth of the medium in the countryside, a factor which, since the late 1960's, has caused a commensurate small decline in the number of radio receivers registered in rural areas. Government plans call for the construction of several additional high-power TV stations and a considerable increase in the number of relay transmitters. Along with the U.S.S.R. and other Eastern European countries, Poland has adopted the French SECAM (sequential memoire) system of color TV broadcasting; the first experimental color telecasts occurred in late 1960. Although progress toward actual color programing started slowly, color telecasts are being introduced at an accelerating pace. Polish television is linked to the Eastern European-Soviet system of Intermission and through it has access to Western Europe's Eurovision telecasts. In 1971 Polish radio and television had exchange and cooperation agreements with over 100 broadcasting corporations and 50 TV companies in about 60 foreign countries, most of them in the so-called third world. It also has exchange agreements with several specialized international organizations in the field of radio and TV broadcasting and is a member of the International Organization for Broadcasting and Television.
Even before the advent of the Gierek regime, the government had made efforts to increase the quality and popularity of radio and TV broadcasting, tailoring it to the growing sophistication of the general subscriber as well as to the interests of special groups, mainly the youth. Figure 54 shows radio and TV programing in 1970. The encouragement of listener and viewer response to various programs, especially those dealing with current social and other problems, had long been official policy, but this aspect of public opinion feedback has become meaningful only under the Gierek regime. The use by Polish radio and TV of Western sources, including news film clips and other informational material supplied by the U.S. Embassy in Warsaw, is more significant than in most other Communist countries. Embassy-supplied material was particularly effective during the extensive live coverage by Polish radio and television of the U.S. manned landing on the moon in 1969.
Among the populace, reliance on Western news and political commentaries broadcast to Poland has always been widespread, increasing significantly during periods of domestic or foreign crisis. For this reason the regime has periodically attacked Western broadcasts in Polish in Poland for interfering in the country's internal affairs, singling out Radio Free Europe for particularly vehement censure. The Polish regime ceased regular and massive jamming of Voice of America and British Broadcasting Corporation transmissions to Poland in 1957 and those of Radio Free Europe in 1962. Sporadic jamming on a selective basis of these and other Western broadcasts has occurred since then, especially at times of crisis such as the December 1970 workers' riots.
Polish radiobroadcasting directed abroad has remained a major part of the regime's propaganda effort, despite a reduction since 1953 of foreign
75
APPROVED FOR RELEASE: 2009/06/16: CIA-RDP01-00707R000200070023-3
