Internet next for religious media tycoon

Poland's religious media tycoon, Father Tadeusz Rydzyk, head of Radio Maryja and Television Trwam, wants to broaden his empire on the Internet.

"If only we had a few Internet websites! We need to fight for young listeners, and the youth is the Internet. Let us all learn [how to use] the Internet," Father Rydzyk appealed to his followers during a holy mass he gave on the seventeenth anniversary of the founding of the controversial Radio Maryja station on Saturday.

Father Rydzyk's media empire has its beginnings in the early 1990s. The listeners of his ultra-conservative Radio Maryja are mainly elderly people, who after 1989 felt marginalised. The radio quickly became a player on the political stage, much to the annoyance of the Vatican, which has repeatedly warned Rydzyk not to get involved in party politics.

In 2003 Rydzyk introduced a new element to the empire – Television Trwam, available via satellite in many countries.

Developing an internet service is just part of the planned expansion of the Rydzyk empire. Only recently the priest revealed that he intends to invest in a mobile communications network.