Belsat TV


Belsat is a Polish free-to-air satellite television channel aimed at Belarus. The channel is a subsidiary of TVP S.A. From the outset, it has been co-funded by the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and international donors.

Mission

Belsat's stated mission is ensuring that Belarusians have access to independent news on the situation in their country and former USSR countries, reliable information on their own history, and culture and entertainment programming in their own language. It serves to forge links between democratic communities in Europe, Belarus and other post-Soviet states, and to support ongoing democratic processes there.

Broadcasting platforms

Satellite and cable networks:
Belsat broadcasts from the Astra 4A satellite, which covers the European region of the former USSR. In Ukraine, it is available on most cable networks. In Poland, it is carried by approximately 20% of cable networks. In Belarus, however, it is unavailable on cable or digital networks due to an unofficial ban by the authorities.
Internet:
The channel's programming is broadcast live via the belsat.eu website, YouTube, and the app for Smart TVs. Meanwhile, the app for Android and iOS tablets and smartphones allows viewers to watch live, and read the latest news with embedded videos. Belsat has eight thematic YouTube channels: Belsat News, Belsat Life, Belsat History, Belsat Music, The Way It Is, Hardcore Cartoons, Belsat in Polish and Belsat in English. You can also listen to the Belsat Music channel on Soundcloud, featuring tracks from Belsat's music programmes.
Social media:
Belsat has profiles on most social media: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, Telegram, Odnoklassniki, VKontakte and Linkedin.

Audience

Television:
According to sociological polls conducted for Belsat by Mia Research from April to May 2019, Belsat is watched by 13% of adult Belarusians. The brand's recognisability rose from 27% to 40% between 2015 and 2019.
There have also been major changes in how the channel's output is watched. The traditional method, via satellite receivers, has been replaced by new technology. In May 2019, 85% of the Mia Research poll respondents declared that they watch the channel's programmes online, compared to only 18% via satellite dishes, 55% on computers and laptops, and 40% on smartphones. 8% of viewers were using Smart TV technology, even though the channel's app had only just been launched at time of polling.
Website:
Compared to former years, there was a steep rise in the activity of Internet users on the channel's website, which has five language versions: Belarusian, Russian, Ukrainian, English and Polish. According to Google Analytics, the site garnered 1,290,042 unique visitors and 12,083,368 views in May 2019, putting it on a par with the popularity of other independent media in Belarus, such as Radio Svaboda or the Belarusian-language online newspaper Nasha Niva. The average number of daily users on the site was 68,153 during that period.
Social media:
Like the website, there are five language versions of all the channel's social media profiles on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, Telegram, Odnoklassniki, VKontakte and Linkedin. In June 2020, they had 550,000 subscribers in total. At the same time, Belsat's eight thematic YouTube channels had a total of 660,000 subscribers. Belsat News is the only Belarusian-language news channel on YouTube with more than 100,000 subscribers. The Russian-language The Way It Is, which targets viewers from the former USSR, passed the 100,000-subscriber mark in June 2019. Both channels won a Silver Button award from YouTube.
Audience profile:
25% of Belsat's viewers were in favour of European integration in May 2019. The minority – 17% – opted for further integration with Russia. Over half named Belarusian citizenship as the most important factor for determining identity, and 20% – local patriotism. 85% of Belsat's audience had a positive attitude towards Poland, while 50% associated Poland with Europe, 25% with prosperity, 22% with democracy, and 55% with shopping.

Airtime

Belsat broadcasts programmes for 19 hours a day, on average. Broadcasting begins at 7.00 a.m. Minsk time and closes down at 2.00 a.m. depending on length of programming. Online transmissions can also be watched via belsat.eu and YouTube. Previously, its daily broadcasting time was temporarily reduced occasionally, due to funding shortages.

History

Beginnings
The creation of a satellite channel as part of Telewizja Polska, aimed at viewers in Belarus, was the initiative of journalist Agnieszka Romaszewska-Guzy. It was designed in response to demand expressed in Belarusian democratic circles for a television channel independent of the Minsk authorities. The idea found support from the Polish government and a wide spectrum of political forces in parliament. As a result, the project became a priority area for Polish policy governing international cooperation to develop democracy and civil society. On June 20, 2006, Telewizja Polska's board formed a commission of media professionals from Poland and Belarus to draft plans for a Belarusian-language channel. Initially, the channel was due to be launched in January 2007. On April 23, 2007, Telewizja Polska and the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs signed an agreement to create a channel named TV Bialorus. Telewizja Polska's board formally approved the new channel as a subsidiary on July 17, 2007. TVP S.A. was allocated 16 million zlotys from public funds to set up the new channel, finally christened “Belsat”. Belsat began broadcasting on December 10, 2007 and since then its director has been Agnieszka Romaszewska-Guzy.
In 2008 Belsat received 20.9 million zloty of financial support from the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, with reducing support in subsequent years. In 2012 the support level was 17.6 million zloty. Additional support came from the governments of Sweden, Netherlands, Norway, and other countries.
Threat of closure
In August 2017, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and its then-head Witold Waszczykowski reduced Belsat's subsidy and terminated the agreement to fund the channel. As a result, Jacek Kurski, the head of TVP, addressed the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, requesting confirmation of whether the government intended to continue funding the channel. Receiving no answer, he addressed the same question to premier Beata Szydlo. Members of the governmental coalition declared support for the channel, and the Ministry of Development became involved. In February 2018, the government pledged to finance the channel's activity from the ministry's reserve fund until the end of the year. It was also declared that, starting in 2019, the channel would be eligible for regular funding from the ministerial budget.

Institutional cooperation

Belsat TV is a subsidiary of TVP S.A., which co-finances it with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and also provides production facilities. From the outset, the channel has been co-funded by a range of institutions, including the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, the Nordic Council of Ministers, the foreign ministries of Norway, the Netherlands, Canada and Lithuania, the British and Irish governments, and the US State Department.
Media institutions such as Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Deutsche Welle have licensed selected programmes to Belsat for free.
Belsat's current strategic institutional partners:
As part of the Belaruskamouny social campaign to promote the Belarusian language, Belsat cooperates with organisations and institutions such as Art-Siadziba cultural centre, Belarusian PEN-Centre, and World Association of Belarusians “Backauščyna”.

The team

In June 2008, the channel had around 100 employees in Poland and Belarus. The team currently numbers around 300 staff and contributors from Poland, Belarus, Ukraine, Russia, Kazakhstan and others. The channel has two registered branch offices in Minsk and Kyiv, as well as a network of correspondents in Berlin, Brussels, Vilnius, Prague and Yerevan.

Attitude of the Belarusian authorities

On April 26, 2007, Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko dubbed the project “stupid and uncongenial”. The Belarusian authorities’ subsequent actions confirmed the political trend set by Lukashenko, resulting in four official refusals to register Belsat in Belarus. Since the channel has no accreditation, its journalists face constant persecution while working in the country. To date, they have spent a total of 125 days in detention and been fined $94,296 US, simply for doing their jobs.
In 2017, the channel's Minsk office was searched and computer equipment was confiscated. The same year, Belsat TV was prohibited from using its trademark, following a Minsk court ruling that it infringed the rights of entrepreneur Andrey Belyakov, who had registered a firm named Belsat Plus. Since then, Belsat's reporters have used equipment bearing an alternative logo that contains consonants from the channel's name – the Cyrillic “BLS” and “tv”.
The most recent search of Belsat's Minsk offices was carried out in 2019, in connection with a case in which the channel's journalists had allegedly slandered Andrey Shved, chairman of the State Forensic Examination Committee.

Attitudes of the European Union and USA

has urged the European Union to support Belsat in four separate resolutions. On January 20, 2011, the Parliament stressed the need to support Belarusian independent media, including Belsat TV. Euro MPs called on the European Commission “to support, with all financial and political means, the efforts of Belarusian civil society and non-governmental organisations in Belarus to promote democracy and oppose the regime”. The resolution also called on the Commission to halt ongoing cooperation and to withdraw its assistance provided to Belarusian state-owned media.
On October 20, 2004 US president George W. Bush signed into law the Belarus Democracy Act, which authorized sanctions against the Belarusian government and its leaders, while allowing for support of and financing to groups, NGOs, and individuals who supported and worked towards democratic and free press goals.
In January 2012, US president Barack Obama signed the Belarus Human Rights and Democracy Act, which amended the 2004 Act and outlined the main priorities for American foreign policy on Belarus, as well as support for independent media, including Belsat TV.
In April 2019, the OSCE condemned the search of Belsat's Minsk offices. In May 2019, Harlem Désir, the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, expressed his disappointment and concern regarding the ongoing practice of imposing penalties on journalists working without accreditation in Belarus. This came in reaction to six Belsat journalists who had been sentenced to hefty fines.

Programmes

The work of the Belsat team and management has been regularly acknowledged by NGOs, media and journalists’ associations. Agnieszka Romaszewska-Guzy and her staff were awarded Rzeczpospolita’s Jerzy Giedroyc prize for promoting good relations with neighbouring countries. She was also named Manager of the Year by business magazine Home & Market, as well as European of the Year 2013 by the European edition of international monthly Reader's Digest, whose winners have acted to improve the lives of others.
won by Belsat TV programmes.