Text of report by Belarusian state-owned broadcaster First TV Channel, on 2 April
[Presenter] The Belarus-TV international satellite channel has started broadcasting to North America. Starting from today, more than 2m aerials have the capacity to receive the Belarus-TV signal. As a result, the channel’s viewership has increased by 10m in the USA and Canada alone. The potential audience of Belarus-TV in the North American continent is as high as 90m. Entry into the North American media market has allowed the TV channel to increase its global audience to 200m people.
[Valeryy Radutski, captioned as chief director of Belarus-TV channel] Today we received an official press release from our partners - the Globecast company, a subsidiary of France Telecom - that the Belarus-TV channel started broadcasting to North American territory. We are very pleased with this - that that we have stepped into a different hemisphere, especially because there is a huge audience out there, a huge Russian-language and Belarusian-language diaspora. We are pleased that we will be watched there, and they will see a truthful account of life in our native Belarus.
Apart from the United States, it will be possible to watch us - I have a small map here - in Canada, America, Mexico, Guatemala, Puerto Rico and Cuba. Belarus-TV channel becomes available to everyone on the Galaxy-25 satellite.
(Source: Belarusian television, Minsk, in Russian 1600 gmt 2 Apr 08 via BBC Monitoring)
on Apr 2nd, 2008 at 18:29
I doubt that millions of viewers in the US will watch them directrly off the sattelite. But it’s likely that Belarus TV will be included in the Russian-language TV packages in cities like New York, LA, Chicago, etc.
Unlike state radio, Belarus TV broadcasts mostly in Russian with occastional Belarusian segments. That makes it appealing to a wide audience from the former USSR. There’s an emphasis on educational and family-oriented programming.
The channel worked hard to enter Russia’s TV market. But the Russian political elites aren’t comfortable of Lukashenko’s growing popularity in Russia, so Belarus TV was precluded from entering the major cities.
A year or two ago Belarus TV was banned in Lithuania. But I believe the ban was lifted a few months later.
on Apr 2nd, 2008 at 23:08
Sorry, 1 in 9 people watching the service? Am I misunderstanding the statistics there?!
on Apr 3rd, 2008 at 02:39
Galaxy 25 is a very popular Ku satellite. Anyone with a 75-90cm dish can view it. One need only to travel to large ethnic-oriented metro areas to see these (larger) Ku dishes pointed at Galaxy 25. (Sorry that RNW decided to recently switch to AMC4 which has fewer viewers/channels). The only caveat is if Belarus and Globecast decide to enter into a subscription arrangement.