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Poland’s largest right-wing broadcaster is planning an English-language channel it claims will be backed by investors close to Donald Trump’s Maga movement.
TV Republika is in talks with US and European investors to finance the station to launch next year, its head Tomasz Sakiewicz told the Financial Times.
An English-language service could fill a gap in continental Europe for news outlets aligned with Maga thinking, Sakiewicz said in an interview. “In the UK, there’s GB News, but in Germany for example, what do they have?’’
Sakiewicz declined to identify the likely backers of the project but said that some had “media experience” and are close to Trump’s Maga movement. He is hoping to conclude negotiations soon. “It’s not Elon Musk but these investors are well known,” Sakiewicz said. “A lot of people in the conservative world now know about our success and understand that our brand is very good.”
Republika captured a substantial share of Poland’s right-wing viewership when pro-EU Prime Minister Donald Tusk moved to take control of state broadcaster and rival TVP after entering office in 2023. Tusk had accused TVP of operating as a mouthpiece for the former Law and Justice (PiS) government and pledged to restore balanced news coverage.
Sakiewicz, 57, argued that Tusk made a “big mistake” with the contested takeover of TVP, which PiS is still challenging in the courts. Tusk “helped us, but not intentionally” by pushing a portion of TVP’s audience towards his station, he said. ‘‘We were very prepared to become the only conservative TV station.”
Now Poland’s most-watched news channel, Republika’s rise has deepened the polarisation of Polish politics. The station also helped rightwing political newcomer Karol Nawrocki secure a narrow victory for PiS in June’s presidential election.
Only days before the vote, Republika co-organised and broadcast the first Polish meeting of the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), during which Trump’s homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, told the country’s voters to pick Nawrocki and described his pro-EU rival Rafał Trzaskowski as “an absolute train wreck of a leader”.
Since taking office, Nawrocki has used his veto powers to block several of Tusk’s government bills, including measures on extending benefits for Ukrainian war refugees and replacing PiS-appointed judges.
TV Republika’s headquarters in Warsaw © Maciek Jazwiecki/FT
Among Poland’s news-only channels, TVP Info now ranks third behind another private channel TVN24. Republika, which is often compared to Fox News in the US, attracted 5.5 per cent of Polish television viewing in November, according to figures from the national broadcasting council.
Sakiewicz, who holds a controlling stake in Republika and is also its editor-in-chief, emerged as a media entrepreneur in the 1990s during Poland’s post-communist transition, when he launched right-wing magazine Gazeta Polska. He co-founded Republika in 2012, but the channel remained marginal while right-wing viewers gravitated to TVP during two terms of PiS rule.
Sakiewicz said he remained closer politically to PiS than to the far-right Confederation party that entered the Polish parliament in 2019. While PiS has continued to be dominated by its ageing leader Jarosław Kaczyński, he predicted that Nawrocki, a former historian, could use Poland’s presidency to expand his own power base within the conservative electorate.
“I have known Nawrocki for 15 years, and I already helped him when he was a young historian because I saw his potential,” Sakiewicz said. “Nawrocki is very ambitious, he wants to show he is a very powerful president and create his own new reality around him.”