ITI Group built the leading Polish media enterprise focusing on broadcasting and online services.
ITI Group was established in 1984 as one of the first private companies in Poland and launched a diversified portfolio of operations across several industries. ITI was the exclusive distributor of Hitachi consumer electronics, represented major Hollywood studios such as Warner Bros, Paramount and Universal in Home Video and Theatrical Distribution and was a pioneer in Poland in the production of television commercials and providing advertising services. Aside from media related activities, the ITI Group also diversified into snack foods becoming a leading potato chip producer, introducing fresh deliveries under the brand Lilly Chips. Other food related activities included the distribution of bread improvers under the brand Jan Piekarz and the import of Kilkenny, Guiness and Carlsberg beer to Poland.
Following the fall of communism in Poland and subsequent rise of a free market economy in 1989/1990, several of these businesses became the core of JVs with leading Western companies. Advertising activities became ITI McCann Erickson, known today as one of the leading Polish advertising agencies; in snack foods, there was a partnership with Intersnack, a German based leading European snack food producer, under the Chio Lilly name; and in theatrical distribution a partnering arrangement emerged with UIP, a venture of Universal and Paramount.
Capitalizing on its theatrical distribution know-how, the ITI Group formed a joint venture with UCI, opening the first multiplex cinema in Poland in 1998 under the brand name Multikino. By 2014, when the ITI Group sold Multikino to Vue Entertainment, a leading UK multiplex operator, Multikino operated 28 multiplex cinemas with 231 screens across Poland.
In 2004 the ITI Group rescued the leading Polish football club, Legia Warsaw from bankruptcy, restructured the club, built the football academy and, in partnership with the City of Warsaw, built a state of the art football stadium. Legia is the all-time Polish champion having won ten several Polish championship titles and 16 Polish Cup titles. In 2014 the ITI Group sold Legia to a club of Polish investors.
In the mid-1990s, the ITI Group shifted focus to television broadcasting and production, applying for a commercial television-broadcasting license in 1995 under the brand TVN, which went on air in October 1997. Today TVN is the leading private Polish commercial television broadcaster operating several thematic channels, including the leading Polish news channel - TVN 24. In 2005, the ITI Group expanded its operations into pay-TV creating one of the major pay-TV platforms in Poland, merging with Groupe Canal+/Vivendi to create nc+.
In online media, the ITI Group was the driving force behind the development of the largest online portal Onet.pl which today is part of Ringier Axel Springer group. The founders of the ITI Group sold the TVN Group operations in 2015 to Scripps Networks Interactive - a leading American developer of lifestyle content in home food and travel categories for television,
mobile and publishing. The TVN sale transaction value exceeded EUR2 billion - positively reflecting the ITI Group’s value creation since the launch of TVN in 1997.
