Hello Kraków: there is official television for communication, there is no communication
Copyright: source: Play Krakówsource: PlayKrakow
Copyright: source: Play Krakówsource: PlayKrakow
January 16, 2023
The Krakow magistrate with residents’ users has a streaming platform, whose flagship program is a spectacular flop. Officials expect cuts in public transport, and residents are asking if the money is going where it is really needed.
Beginning In the beginning, there was an online official streaming platform (i.e. television with programs on demand), then the official news program began to appear within it. This required the organization of studies, which cost over PLN 12 million. Then, more than PLN 7 million was spent on maintaining the team and operating the TV broadcast. When it was determined that the costs were high and the viewership was low, the cause of the program, the municipal company decided to change the format.
The idea for an “evening breakfast” is born – a daily, hour-long program with news from the city and conversations with guests. Cost of obtaining a project in the existing year: more than PLN 65 million (make expenses added 45 million). Many residents look at these expenses with disbelief and bring the more urgent ones – last they warnthat the current year will be difficult for Krakow and they announce cuts in public transport. Instead of her channel, the magistrate maintains propaganda, which almost no one watches – he points to the critical Play Kraków platform and the abandoned Play Kraków News program, whose format is limited to the daily program “Hello Kraków”.
This is how you can summarize the support of the Krakow medium supported from the city’s treasury.
It is also worth specifying the details. In 2020, the Krakow Festival Office (KBF) decided to create the Play Kraków mobile streaming platform. It was the second video project funded by the municipality. tv.krakow.pl, a website with short information materials, created by a five-person editorial team, came from. Some residents were already asking why the city had an official television.
Under the command of the head of the KBF, Izabela Błaszczyk, it was supposed to compete with the streaming giants. It ended, among others, with the retransmission of cultural events, the publication of short films and short journalistic materials. The materials in the peaks reached the level of departure 290 plays (by main name 2022 – 40 plays).
The Play Kraków team was not discouraged by these results. On the contrary, a decision was made to develop the project. In March 2022, he started the daily Play Kraków News program. Doubts about the sense of its transmission were voiced by the councilors who appointed a commission to investigate the expenses of Kraków 5020 companies. It was this company, managed by Izabela Błaszczyk, who took control of the city video platform. Finally, an attempt was made to stop broadcasting and the design change formula. How did the idea for “Hello Kraków” come about?
“In Hello Kraków, we will present local initiatives, traditions characteristic of our region, but also modern calculations of the city and its inhabitants, which are worth being proud of. All this is part of the New Hospitality that guides the city’s promotional activities. The main goal of Hello Kraków is promotion of the capital of Lesser Poland” – one could read on the Play Kraków website just before the start of the program. It is difficult to say what the “New Hospitality” is, which is specific to the center of the program being broadcast. After tapping the word in the Google search engine, information pops up from the website of the Krakow ICE Congress Center – the same where the “Hello Krakow” studio is located – where workshops under this slogan were held. In the information about the event, unfortunately, it is in vain to find its equivalent.
What did the inhabitants of Krakow get for using their online community? The studio looks good, very similar to where TVN makes its “breakfast”. However, there is a damage: behind the glass facade, you can’t see much, because the program is recorded after dark. The interior of the studio strikes with the colors of many LED screens. Some have a purely decorative function, while others show “Hello Kraków” correspondents with a live entrance.
Also read:
From the nearby market square, the studio is connected to the weather forecast presenter prepared by the meteorologist employed by the company. In local announcements, this happens extremely rarely – even well-established brands often come up with a cleaner forecast by IMGW. For free.
There are also connections with reporters from the city. Examples of topics: it snowed and the city prepared a map of downhill slopes; perhaps there will be a nightly prohibition in liquor stores; the city wants to establish a new park. Sometimes journalists do not impress with either fluent or basic language. News “Hello Krakow” is also not news of the type “only with us”. The same information was also provided by other media, with Radio Kraków, the local “Wyborcza”, the Internet Love Kraków and a specific branch of TVP at the forefront.
However, to improve it, that the editorial staff
The ones with neutral or typical overtones predominate: a conversation about the quality of libraries for the blind, individual original books, interviews with Ukrainians living in Poland, reviews of events in of Krakow cultural institutions, an interview with Martyna Wojciechowska, who is visiting Krakow at the moment.
There is also a place on the air for a long trip with a delegation to the studio, President Jacek Majchrowski. The clearly stressed side, scrupulously using the formula “Mr. President” before specific questions, omitted political topics by a wide margin. Just before Christmas, you will find a place to use Christmas Eve dishes and traditions of the Majchrowski house. Few viewers learned, for example, that you can eat sour rye soup and red borscht at Mr. President’s. Perhaps the “New Hospitality” – lack of attention at the Christmas table due to culinary preferences. Too bad we didn’t hear anything about mayonnaise.
Accusations about the tendency to transfer are intertwined with those about the waste of city money on a project that is not needed. The episode “Hello Kraków” published on January 10, 15 hours after its publication on YouTube, was not watched at this ceremony even once. The view counter usually stops at a few hundred views – not exceeding the usual number equal to the per mille of the city’s inhabitants. The presentation of the text is cut from the program material on the work of a train typist – over 160 thousand. impressions.
Can the city hall be viewed from the financial program negotiated with city money?
“The Hello Kraków program was created by checking the expectations of customers – both residents of Krakow and guests visiting the city, not the city hall. It is not an official bulletin, it only promotes Krakow, the entrance to life in the city and its attractions” – answers the question asked by the press office of the City Hall.
“There is no demand from the residents to create content on the pseudo-television issued de facto by the city hall,” replies Maciej Fijak, a local activist and journalist. – “Not only is there no demand, but there is even fury from users that, apart from carefully examining expenses, external reviews are burned as part of a pseudo-media project that no one watches. The materials are unattractive, inaccurate and simply bland. Unfunny jokes read from the prompter, who is very embarrassed among the few opinions “- judges the content of the Fijak program.
The city does have a lot of expenses, and funding a media project is definitely not the most urgent. Krakow councilors have recently opposed the increase in ticket prices. But something for something – they designed a redirection to the public transport of the Public Transport Authority. “Either we will adapt the transport offer to the function of radically cutting connections, which is very difficult for me to handle, or as part of additional funds” – ZTP spreads its hands, Luke Frank. Without increased revenues from tickets, fewer vehicles will leave Krakow’s roads and tracks, and they will also take trips along routes.
So there is money for propaganda, and there is no money for trams and buses – they concluded that Krakow activists, proposing savings only from the liquidation of Krakow 5020 companies, will donate public transport to patch the hole in public transport.
“The functioning of Krakow 5020 companies consumes tens of millions of zlotys, and results in money that does not result from other measurable benefits. Megalomania, misplaced participation and costs of activities are just the beginning of the list of sins of the institution” – said Krzysztof Kwarciak from the associations We Improve Krakow.
“Funds with transmission cables just for additional expenses related to public transport”
– Joanna Malita-Król from the Rescue Action for Krakow noticed at one point from OKO.press. – “The next command is the purchase of green circles. This is the last moment to buy the last scraps of greenery from private hands. Meanwhile, in the record-breaking eight-billion fund allocated for ten cells, five million zlotys.”
Especially that there are already local media in Krakow, the effects of which were partly duplicated by the municipal project. Weather forecast, information about the actions of city councillors, event plans or cultural events appearing periodically, every hour, on the air of several radio stations with a local license. The daily supplement to the news and current affairs program has been operating for many years – it is simply “Kronika” on TVP Kraków. Several websites and regular videos about the life of the city. All these media also influence the design of the magistrate – the application of materials to critical activities of the administration.
A sad summary of the activities of Play Kraków and “Hello Kraków” is the threat of a lawsuit against one of the residents. A call to stop violating the personal rights of officials they sent to Mateusz Jaśka, sharply reviewing the actions of the magistrate on the Facebook page “What’s wrong with Krakow”. In his entries, he stated, among other things, that one of the director positions in the Kraków 5020 company receives one of the officials. The city office removed this and several other posts critical of the media project under the threat of going to court.
So there was supposed to be a new Netflix and “New Hospitality”. Instead, we have anyone, news, journalism tendencies, and threats of lawsuits.
The more than two-year history of urban streaming looks like a bigger PR disaster every day – a pity that it is financed from the pockets of the city’s residents.
Also read:
Reporter, author of texts on climate and economy. A graduate of the Maria Curie-Skłodowska University in Lublin, he previously worked, among others, for Radio Eska and Radio Kraków, he also published in Magazyn WP.pl and Wyborcza.pl.
Reporter, author of texts on climate and economy. A graduate of the Maria Curie-Skłodowska University in Lublin, he previously worked, among others, for Radio Eska and Radio Kraków, he also published in Magazyn WP.pl and Wyborcza.pl.
Comments
Comments will be available soon