“Belsat” is getting ready for broadcast

“Belsat” satellite channel launch is scheduled on the December of the current year. The Belarusian language channel is going to broadcast from Poland, covering Belarus.

The channel will start working on the 10^th of December, according to Agneshka Romashevska, the director of “Belsat”. The event was announced during a conference «Polska pomoc zagraniczna», organized by polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs.  

Previously the “Belsat” broadcasts were supposed to start in November, but the channel administration was very careful in their prognosis. For example during an online-conference with the readers of “Nasha Niva” Agneshka Romashevska said she hoped the broadcasting will begin by the end of the year.

Half a million viewers
“Belsat” became the 8^th channel in the TVR (“Polish television”) holding and the first to broadcast for a foreign audience. The agreement on its creation was signed on the 23^rd of April 2007 between TVR and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Poland. On the 18^th of July TVR had officially incorporated the channel in its structure. The employees are actively preparing “Belsat” for broadcast. 

The project is financed by the Polish government, which had already donated 4 million euro for this year’s expenses. But the administration of “Belsat” is still hoping to receive additional funding from the US.

The new channel’s signal will be relayed via satellites “Astra” and “Syrius”. The creators of “Belsat” have conducted a research, which had shown that 7.2% of population of Belarus use satellite television, and the number is still growing. The channel administration is expecting to affect about half a million of Belarusian viewers.

16 hours a day
At first the channel will broadcast its programs 16 hours a day. Several times a day a 4-hour block, containing news, reports on acute problems, historical and cultural programs, will be repeated. There are also plans on fiction movies, serials and humorous programs.  

The channel will have its own talk-show that will be recorded in Vilnius. Much attention is paid to culture – many musical programs, a series of shows about prominent Belarusian artists and a theatre, the first play of which will be “The Locals” by Yanka Kupala. No chindren’s programs are expected – according to Romashevska, “the majority of them costs too much. But it doesn’t mean we’re not going to return to this matter later”.  

“Promote democracy and freedom of choice”
The official language of “Belsat” will be Belarusian. “There are many Belarusians on our staff and it is their position, not mine, which will be influencing the programs of the station”, – states Romashevska. And reassures that “Belsat” will not become a “megaphone of propaganda”: “We will be the antipodes of the “Belarusian Television” because we will talk about things, they omit. We will present information that doesn’t appear or appears politically biased on “BT”. But we will not advertise only one political player, we will have no such direction. We want to promote democracy and freedom of choice”. 

Buy .by
Belarusian authorities have already reacted to the creation of the channel. The head of the state Alexander Lukashenka himself called the project “foolish, worthless and unfriendly”. 

Following this event the “foolish, worthless and unfriendly” channel was denied a domain for their website in the .by zone. “Belsat” contacted a polish hosting company home.pl, asking whether they could buy a domain name belsat.by. The hoster confirmed that this name is currently unoccupied and is ready for purchase. But after a couple of days the administration of the channel was informed about Belarusian side refusing to sell the name without any explanations. “Belsat” though is still expecting to launch its internet site by the middle of October. The station has already bought the names belsat.eu and belsat.com. 

Anyways the “Belsat” staff is expecting “warm welcome” from the Belarusian authorities. The channel administration is ready, in case their journalists will not be given accreditations, but will do everything to settle all the formal matters regarding their authors’ work in Belarus.

The expert’s opinion
“Belsat’s” determination to get accreditation in Belarus is absolutely right, thinks Eduard Melnikov, a member of the board of Belarusian Association of journalists and a professor of the European Humanities university: “The channel is positioning itself as a public television, is not breaking any of the laws and intends to work in accordance with the European and world standards of TV-journalism. That is why there should be no legal barriers for accrediting an office or journalists of “Belsat” in Belarus”. 

But the expert doesn’t dismiss the possibility of rejecting the accreditation request, “minding the difficulties any independent mass-medium meets in Belarus”. In Melnikov’s opinion, such a move will be a big mistake of the authorities: “The channel is already positioning itself as a non-political one. In this sense it is a complete antipode to those undercover, unofficial and, to tell the truth, low-quality products, made by amateurs and released in the Internet. Many of such things could even be perceived as a television   misdemeanour. Even Belarusian authorities should prefer working with professionals, who take the responsibility of acting officially and broadcast unbiased information”.

In the expert’s opinion, the official work of “Belsat’s” office is beneficial to Belarusian authorities both from the economical point of view (the channel will pay taxes to the republican budget) and from the psychological: “If the reporters are able to get to press-conferences and other official events, they won’t have to use the unchecked information and rumours which could be used by any political player to their benefit. Giving the “Belsat’s” journalists accreditation means deny dealing with the illegal things. Moreover, extremist projects, broadcasting to Belarus from abroad might appear”.

Commenting on the head of the state’s estimation of “Belsat” the expert noted: “Our president could’ve said things far worse. It means the channel has chances”

Andrei Aleksandrov