BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

10/12/2007

Human Rights Day launch for Belarus TV channel

The multi-national project to beam independent television into Belarus is planned to hit the airwaves on International Human Rights Day. Belsat will be for Belarusians by Belarusians, say the producers. And they'll throw in Ally McBeal, too.

Nothing attracts broadcasters attention like a hot new market. Even though Belarus is home to Europe's last major dictator, broadcasters are lined up to get their share of the audience.

Belarus has a reputation for being a very ugly place for media. Leader for life Alexander Lukashenko has strong-armed most media and most journalists under his control. None of this has pleased Belarus' nearest neighbors, Poland and Lithuania, who have forged a partnership to, at the very least, bring a different viewpoint to "the last dictatorship in Europe."

Belsat has been in the planning stages for months. The Polish government committed ?5.8 million, mainstay of the ?7.5 million budget, and the new channel will operate as a division of Polish PSB TVP. The Lithuanian public broadcaster is providing programming support and the Irish PSB is providing training. The channel will offer news and information in Belarusian as well as entertainment, including, they say, popular US serial Ally McBeal.

"This programme is a unique project," said Eduard Melnikau, a coordinator for the project, quoted by the Belarusian Association of Journalists. "It is an example of cooperation between the governments of two democratic European states, Poland and Lithuania, on the one side, and democratic Belarusian journalists."- Michael Hedges December 10, 2007

Source:

http://followthemedia.com/conflictzones/belsat10122007.htm