Wiktor Legowicz

Wiktor Józef Legowicz was born on 2 April 1949 in Tomaszów Mazowiecki, in central Poland. His father was Jan Legowicz, a philosopher and historian of philosophy.

He studied pedagogy at the University of Warsaw and graduated in 1971. In his third year he chose a student placement at Polish Radio's children's department, which was then based in the building on Myśliwiecka Street in Warsaw that was home to Programme 3. Through that placement he got to know the people of Trójka. Speaking in the Trójka programme "Ja tu gram" in 2017, he said that this was how he came to the station and that he had stayed ever since.

Legowicz was associated with Programme 3 of Polish Radio from the early 1970s. From 1983 to 1991 he was the station's programme director, and from 1994 to 1997 he served as deputy director. He later remained at the station as a commentator on economic affairs.

His best known creation was "Informator Ekonomiczny", a daily programme about the economy. In the summer of 1992 Trójka's director at the time, Jacek Ejsmond, stopped him in a corridor and asked whether he could put together an economics magazine that would explain the subject to listeners in simple language. Legowicz used his training as a teacher, recorded a pilot that the director liked, and the programme went on air on 12 October 1992. He was its author and presenter for many years. He said the team always tried to imagine listeners who did not know basic economic terms. He also hosted "Bardzo Ważny Projekt" and "Bardzo Ważny Problem Europejski", and in 2017 he became one of the presenters of the economics and current affairs programme "Winien i ma" when it returned to Trójka.

Outside the station he was deputy editor in chief of the daily newspaper "Nowa Europa", a contributor to the monthly "Radio-Lider" and a lecturer in journalism at the University of Warsaw. He belonged to the Association of Polish Journalists and later to the Association of Journalists of the Republic of Poland.

His honours included the Ostre Pióro award, which he received in 1999, 2002 and 2005, an award from the President of the National Bank of Poland and the Marian Krzak Journalism Award of the Polish Bank Association. In 2000 he was made a Knight of the Order of Polonia Restituta for outstanding service to Polish Radio, and in 2015 he received the Officer's Cross of the order for outstanding service to the development of Polish Radio.

Reports of his death did not give details of his family. Colleagues described him as warm, cultured and tactful, with a gift for winning people over. The journalist Patrycjusz Wyżga, who worked with him at Trójka, said he would remember him as a man full of good humour, joy and appetite for life. The economist Marek Zuber, a frequent guest on his programmes, said they were also good friends who met outside work.

Wiktor Legowicz died on 15 October 2026, aged 77. Trójka announced his death that day on its social media accounts, in a message signed by the station's current and former journalists. They recalled that he had created "Informator Ekonomiczny", that he had an excellent relationship with the team, and that after retiring he stayed in constant touch, calling, supporting and helping. "Thank you for everything, you were a wonderful colleague and teacher. We will miss you very much," they wrote.

The place and cause of death were not made public. His death was reported by PAP, Rzeczpospolita, TVN24, TVP, Onet, Wirtualnemedia.pl and Dziennik.pl. Trójka remembered him on air in "Ekonomia w Trójce" and "Zapraszamy do Trójki". Funeral arrangements had not been announced at the time of writing.

Legowicz is remembered as one of the people who shaped Trójka, both as the director who ran it for most of the 1980s and as the founder of "Informator Ekonomiczny", which from 1992 explained the economy to listeners in plain language through years of economic change in Poland. Paweł Rochowicz of Rzeczpospolita, a regular guest, said Legowicz had set a standard that difficult subjects should be discussed in light, accessible language. Patrycjusz Wyżga called him a journalist of the old type in the best sense of the word, someone who stuck to the craft and who could paint a picture of numbers with words on the radio, where nothing can be shown.