How popular is Radio Maryja in Poland?

Hello Harry

Are you sure all that talk about Radio Maryja and TVTWRAM or whatever it's called is true? I heard all that stuff and looked into it when I got here, I didn't hear anything dodgy from those sources, I think worse is heard on some UK national news programmes when they have their round the table debates with foreign correspondents.

I am aware there is lots said online about RM et al, but I am yet to actually come across anything substantiated except the shirts off your back nonsense and the brainless tactless quip about the African-appearance priest or whatever it was.

Is the negative press about RM not really a load of hyperbole nonsense whipped up by anti-church types or anti whatever political party RM was supposed to be aligned with (allegedly!) ? Honestly, every time I tune in to Unfinished Conversations with someone else who speaks fluent Polish I don't hear anything anti-S or whatever, I think once some listener caller said something about Jews but they were given a sort of neutralising retort by the host and I don't recall any more than that since I've been here this year. I am aware there is a lot alleged online about RM that is negative, and possibly stuff might have been said before that I am ignorant of, but from what I see right now on their TV channel and what I hear on RM in the evenings it seems very mild or non existent compared to the rumour mill. Can I just point out I do not even in the slightest agree with or condone racism, anti-Semitism or homophobia.

Yes I am very sure that they are lying Nazi scum. Just look at their support for the death penalty: very fuccking Christian! And to quote the Council of Europe, Radio Maryja has been "openly inciting to antisemitism for several years".

The very idea of it is crazy to me - but do many people actually listen to it?

And just how bad is it? I gather even most "moderate" catholics regard it as something of an embarassment.

I've never heard the station by the way.

people do, mostly the older generation....

as every radiostation, they have their own slip ups.... and it's quite funny, if you speak Polish:






;)

I share your disgust at anyone that is genuinely as you describe.

I can only speak as I find - so far I have not noticed anything to substantiate the Council's comments - I can only assume they are mistaken or the offences to decency were in the past.

I've not listened to RM night & day as am not Catholic nor even remotely religious, but I do tune in regularly and at random in the eves, and like some of their discussions on radio and TV. So far, as far as I can tell - nasty swearing 'mohair beret army' on Youtube or not - there seems little or nothing coming out of RM to substantiate the bad press and allegations. Obviously, whether I have missed the bad stuff in the past I don't know, but so far I have actually been somewhat impressed with the discussions and their tackling issues the MSM would not. In fact I like them more than I do Radio 4!! If I may inject a little humour, I am reminded of a fake ad for a spoof magazine periodical at (UK) satirical site The Daily Mash, it was in the style of The Oldie or some such, and the spoof mag was called "The Racist Nan" (eg a magazine for racist grandmothers in Britain). Having met a few elderly ladies there who are mildly (if there's such a thing) racist, I can with some sadness say that the satire is not lost on me.

And have made a few poor business decisions.

Actually they pray most time.

What's not to like!

The fact is, Radio Maryja's (and TV Trwam's) core listeners (not actually that many - they claim about 3m audience share - rather fewer Poles than were PZRR members) are octogenarians, late middle aged people in small villages in the east, clergy and people with an unhealthy religious obsession.

There are other less fanatical Christian broadcasters - Warsaw Archdiocese operates Radio Josef for example, however RM gets so much publicity because they like to shout loud, have a talent for putting their foot in their mouth and have the 'Family of Radio Maryja', a kind of geriatric rent-a-mob, almost a church within The Church, which Pope John Paul II made the point of publicly and pointedly refusing to meet during his final visit to Krakow.

Good for him. Hadn't heard about that.

1.68 % of Polish ppl listen to this radio.

Most popular is RMF FM 27.45 %

Like the one enabling people to give money to them free of charge at the post office!

Which of course led to people making multiple donations of a groszy, costing them (I think) 2.50 pln each in procesing fees!

"Show your support for Radio Maryja by sending them 5zl"! I did just that (photocopied transfer orders and went into the post office with a nice big jar of 1gr, 2gr and 5gr coins) and cost them the best part of a grand.

Just to be clear so I know if I am missing something, Harry could you tell me whether you heard offensive output yourself? If so, was it live (ie as broadcast at the time) or was it a recording found online said to be their output? Obviously something from them has wound yourself and others up, and Nazi or anti-S etc remarks would wind me up too, but so far I have not heard any, and what little I did hear was less worrying than I might hear to a phone in on some late night UK radio programme before the host cuts them off or plays a jingle over it as the 7-secs censor/time delay button is pressed.

Interesting discussion. I heard a lot about it before I came to Poland, so far I've not heard anything dodgy. All I can recall is a phone in one night when a listener might've been a bit offensive about another religion but they were sort of retorted and then cut off by the host. Nothing worse than you can hear on the UK's late night phone ins, and I've heard more offensive stuff from UK MSM foreign correspondents and debates on a Sunday morning on UK terrestrial TV.

So, I'm waiting to see what all the fuss is about.

Sure, the mohair berets on Youtube look and sound ghastly, the ones that were swearing etc, but surely that's not enough to condemn a whole radio station is it?

Most of their debates and discussions on topics diverse and away from religion I find pretty good and I like it more than Radio 4 in the UK. Yeah the religious stuff bores me, but the rest of the output is intellectual food for thought on topics I usually quite want to know about.

I'm not going to claim to be listening every night, but when I have tuned in at random I am yet to hear any of these supposedly controversial anti this and anti that remarks. If their listeners phone in and say them, well we can argue that the listeners are dinosaurs, but not sure you can hold a radio station responsible for its wider public having free speech, even if we disagree vigorously with the tone or content of that free speech. Anyway, as I say, so far I've not even heard anything that remotely matches what I had feared I'd hear. So far, though, so far...

(Apologies if I have missed what all the fuss was about, I can only speak following my irregular listening this year. All I am aware of is the shirt/Jews comment and some quip to an African priest, both stupid and immature remarks no doubt, but a mouth opening without first brain-engaging is a common phenomenon globally.)

That's just the tip of the iceberg. The RM outfit has been involved in all sorts, including far-right party politics, operating a private university (that allegedly won't take students from Warsaw in case they corrupt the others), a viciously right-wing newspaper, a television station (check out their website) and a number of businesses. Not to mention its financialk connections with a notorious ex-Nazi who is on the run in South America and is wanted by the US for operating death squads in the 1970s. The Church in Poland has openly criticised it and asked people not to listen to it - though it has some grassroots support among fanatics.

The televangelist guy who runs it (who came back to PL when his operation in Germany was closed down by the government) famously said that the late Mrs Kaczynska, wife of the dead president, was an old witch and should kill herself, said that if Jesus came back today he'd drive a Mercedes, and is himself driven around in a Maybach costing around half a million dollars, funded by donations from impoverished old age pensioners.

I've heard much of this stuff before, I think the witch comment was verified as correctly reported. The rest of it, people I know who listen to RM, laugh off as propaganda and nonsense. Having listened to RM myself and not heard anything, especially not any anti-Sem stuff which I'd find particularly vile and offensive, I don't know what to think. I too had heard the S American Nazi rumour etc etc and that too was laughed at by a listener I spoke with as utter nonsense.

However, if you randomly talk to Poles in the UK about RM, they will say it is an embarrassment & condemn RM. I did not find any that liked it.

When I put that to Poles here in Poland who like it and listen to RM, they say that people who criticise it have never listened to it and are just believing propaganda.

So, I don't really know what to believe - except to say I am as yet completely unable to find anything nasty when I listen myself. What I term as nasty is racism, homophobia, anti-Semitism, prejudice, xenophobia, to name a few.

Anyone want to enlighten me, who has heard 'bad' stuff live with their own ears, I want to get to the truth.

Confirmed without doubt. Not a rumour.


Yes. I have heard some pretty unpleasant stuff with my own ears, during talks given by an individual called Stanislaw Krajski. About a particular group of people (I won't add fat to the fire by naming them) infiltrating Polish society, plotting world domination etc. The usual malicious nonsense. Other stuff too.


Interesting who and where - very few people actually listen to it.

I think that radio speakers don't say any bad stuff on air and might be generally ok. It's the listeners who from time to time call and say nasty or political stuff. That's probably why they have not been sued yet (or have they?) But I'm one of those who doesn't listen it at all so I might be wrong...

But I've seen many times tv trwam and they like to depict Woodstock festival as morally rotten assembly full of satanists... ;D

Didn't they have a pop at Wielka Orchiestra too?

Wielka Orkiestra ŚP = Owsiak = Woodstock

Yes that's why I mentioned it after your comments on Przystanek Woodstock.

I remember hearing them advising their listeners not to donate to Wielki Orchiestr for all sorts of reasons. Closely followed by an appeal for money from O. Rydzyk himself.

Which, just recently, openly lied about someone receiving a call from her BOR husband after the Smolensk crash - which he died in. There's more, but that was truly despicable.

Wait a mo brit in Poland, sth here doesnt add up. Your profile says you dont speak Polish so how in God's name do you understand what the hell radio maryja is talking about??

Surely he ain't an agent from the Family Of Radio Maryja spamming the forum? Best not to be cynical - unless it turns out his real name is Fr. Tadeusz R and he's posting from the back of a Maybach. ;-)

There's other ways of asking a question than to put it in such terms, any real need to write so excitedly "what the hell"? The answer is plainly obvious, apart from the fact I understand some very basic Polish, I listen to it only when others who are native Poles are around and they interpret it. I have no reason to believe they omit anything.

I am keen to know why there is the hysterical dislike for RM, evident on this board, and in the people I ask about it back home in England. As I said before, as yet I've heard nothing, nada, zilcho, that I haven't heard said far worse on the UK telly in so-called news discussion slots.

I'm left to assume that either there is indeed a campaign against RM, or there is some grain of truth in it but not as bad as web posts suggest, or that whatever happened is in the past and they are now steering clear of the same controversy. It's an interesting quest for the truth, I'd have loved to hear something nasty in their output so that I could have reached a conclusion by now and condemned them with the rest of you. So they've either turned over a new leaf or, and apologies to the mods for saying this, the talk of them being deliberately anti whatever is actually a load of bollox. Goodnight, folks.

Embarrassment?

The poles I know have admitted as much.

You must have some VERY good friends who will sit roung with you and interpret radio maryja programmes, I had to learn Polish cos my friends and family were getting pissed off with translating.

More a dislike of the whole 'ciemnogrod' thing, the blatant political activism of the RM organisation (including directly supporting and funding a party who wants to stop 'BritsinPoland' from owning their own homes or voting in elections), the visits to the South American nazi fugitive and the discrepancy between the poverty of the listeners and the Maybach that their donations paid for. Plus a general antipathy among the educated to televangelists.


Check the schedules for a polemicist or feliotonista- that's when you're most likely to her the shocking stuff.


They're trying to behave a bit, and no longer jamming other radio stations or having unscreened calls.


Since you seem interested in religious radio, try Radio Jozef, the Church's official station.

I've noticed that they've gone very quiet recently since the election of Komorowski. Rydzyk seemed suspiciously quiet during the whole cross spat - and I wonder if it's not because they realise that upsetting the Government now will almost certainly result in them being investigated and closed down. Their main ally in the State is gone, Jarek is leading PiS to disaster - really, Rydzyk is no fool.

I challenged them on that, I said before to a couple of them something like "Come on, you just don't want to admit that you've been donating to these people" (I assumed they'd been donating, apparently they haven't!)

I think I recall a caller ringing in and saying the word "Jew" in a negative way a few weeks back and this too was interpreted faithfully, the caller was given short shrift it seemed and they moved swiftly on to the next. I can't remember the subject, though, but it was the UC evening prog.


I do, that's why I'm here for an extended stay. Don't get me wrong, I think a bit of skepticism about people who post on bulletin boards is a very healthy thing, but let's not get carried away eh. I ain't no RM plant, at worst I'm a bit of a geek originally from Essex, minus the white socks and Ford Capri, but that's about the worst that could be said of me.