For many years he was a journalist for TVP, co-creating so-called real socialist entertainment programs. During martial law, he said goodbye to television, but a few years later – in a completely different Poland – he managed to set up his own station. But before that, even before tvN, he was doing a little bit of everything: producing chips, trading furs, and distributing videotapes. Mariusz Walter, the founder of tvN, is included in the list of the 100 richest Poles of the early 21st century.
Mariusz Walter was born in 1937 in Lviv. His father was a judge who was shot in the courtyard of the NKVD headquarters in Kiev during World War II. He and his mother survived the war in Silesia. After the war, he graduated from the Silesian University of Technology in Gliwice.
“I can’t help you if you don’t anchor yourself in the party”
He took his first steps in the media at a student radio station. In the 1960s he went to TVP. He quickly started his career.
In 1967-1983 he was a member of the Polish United Workers’ Party. In a 2021 interview with Newsweek, Walter said of it this way: “Are you talking about joining the party? I realized that if I wanted to do anything on television in those days I was a nouveau riche, a construction technician, a master’s degree in engineering.” civilian. Z I have a very bad background. If I want to do what I dream of, I have to arm myself at Powstańców Field. Arming myself means having my own team, my own room, only to be Ignacy Waniewicz once asked me for an interview (after being expelled from Poland in 1968 he became president of Canadian television) and said: »I see you as a talented young man, etc. helping you and you can’t help yourself either if you don’t anchor yourself to the party”.
In the same interview, Walter also frequently referred to comments about his alleged collaboration with the Security Service. “You can always tell the SB file is burnt, but I, you know, have it at home. It’s four fingers thick. And there’s nothing I can blame myself or my family for.”
The end of the TVP adventure. Chip production and fur trade
He worked at TVP until 1982, when he eventually became editor-in-chief of the Editorial Board of Public Relations and Documentary Forms. He co-created popular programs such as “City Tournament” and “Studio 2”. He ended his association with television during martial law.
1981. Meeting of members of the Polish Radio and Television Committee of Radio and Television (Radiokomitet, KSRiT). In the photo: editor-in-chief of the Editorial Office of Publicistic Performances and Documentary Forms of Studia-2 TVP Mariusz Walter
In the 1980s, he met entrepreneur Jan Wejchert, with whom he founded the company. The first relates to the production of chips, which is a real challenge in socialist Poland. In an interview with Forbes in 2015, Walter recalled: “I remember when our first shipment of chips was to reach Super Sam at Unii Lubelskiej Square, we stood there with Bożena (wife – ed.) and watched people struggle to open foil that we use to put these chips in. We have to do something so people don’t have to open them with their teeth.”
In 1984, with Wejchert, Walter founded the company ITI (International Trade and Investment). The company received a concession from the authorities of the Polish People’s Republic to import electronic equipment from abroad. The company also distributes films on videocassette in Poland.
In the 1980s, Walter also dabbled in other jobs. In an interview for Forbes, he said: “Our other business is artificial fur. They are very good, but they have one drawback – their sleeves come undone. One day, on the steps in front of our office on ul. Aldony on Saska Kępa, there was a crowd of women carrying feathers to We had no way of dealing with them. Janek and I saved ourselves by fleeing through the garden. Thankfully the feather episodes were short. However, Janek always had a lot of business ideas.”
Big dream in my head
However, television turned out to be the biggest business idea. Walter later said that in a time of martial law and ubiquitous propaganda, it was hard even to dream of such an effort. Later, when the system changed in Poland, that dream started to come true. However, Walter needs to obtain the necessary license. And in the early 90s he failed. In 2017, in an interview with Polityka’s Jacek Żakowski, he said: “A few months before the first license in 1992, Radio Luxemburg, RTL7, a group of wealthy Polish businessmen, Śląski Bank, several large companies – together we founded a the project that was reported was rated as the best. But we lost control of Polsat.”
Mariusz Walter in 1996
Żakowski’s interlocutor did not hide that this failure broke him deeply and he thought that his own television dreams would never come true.
But he kept trying. “I really wanted this TV. And then I contacted a friend from a construction technical school. He has a TV in Krakow and its surroundings, which is called Wisła. He said: “Listen, I don’t know what to do with it. I have some money so I invested it, but maybe you can buy it from me. Just on credit, it has killed us so badly. For years. If now someone says that we have received some big gifts from some authority, they are lying, “he recalled in an interview with Polityka.
25 years ago tvN was launched
Over the next several months, the recruitment and training of journalists for the new television continued. “We teach sorrel completely green from the start, but we also download masterpieces. Like Grzegorz Miecugow, and later – even before launch – Tomasz Lis, who, after a few phone conversations, quit his job as TVP correspondent in the US for tvN “He took my word for it because it’s going to be a success,” Walter explained.
1998. Conference on tvN
A new television called TVN was launched in 1997.
Walter headed tvN until 2001, when he was succeeded by his son, Piotr. In 2012, he stopped being a member of the ITI Governing Board. Already in 2004, the weekly “Wprost” estimated his fortune at PLN 450 million, which, according to this rating, places him 34th on the list of the richest Poles.
“Reader. Future teen idol. Falls down a lot. Amateur communicator. Incurable student.”
