On Sunday, Sept. 6, roughly 29,000 Poles paid a television station’s government bill.

The station is Telewizja Republika, for most of this year the most-watched news channel in the country and the largest conservative broadcaster in it. Since January 2024 it has been under an advertiser boycott it has never escaped. Viewer donations now rival the network’s entire commercial revenue. Last week those donations had to stretch to the annual installment on its state broadcast license — roughly $550,000 — which the station did not have. It said so on air, opened its studio doors to the public and put its hosts on in shifts. Donations came from Polish households and from Poles calling in from Chicago, New York, and Toronto. Within nine hours the appeal had raised the money. It was the second September in a row the station had come up short.