A subsidiary of TVP, Belsat is a satellite television channel that targets the people of Belarus. The station was launched to create free content for the Belarusian audience, which has been captured for years by the state propaganda of the Alexander Lukashenko regime. Belsat launched broadcasting in December 2007.
Media assets
Television: Belsat
State Media Matrix Typology: Independent State Funded (ISF)
Ownership and governance
The management of Belsat is staffed with top experts and veteran journalists with vast knowledge about eastern Europe and Belarus. Its director for a long time has been Agnieszka Romaszewska-Guzy, an experienced Polish journalist and one of the world’s key experts in Russian language media in Eastern Europe.
Source of funding and budget
Belsat has been funded by the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Several governments from Nordic countries and Western Europe also donated funding to the channel from time to time.
Editorial independence
There is no record of government interference in the editorial affairs of the channel. The Belarusian president often disparages the channel for its critical coverage of the Belarusian government.
Belsat doesn’t feature on its website an official statute that protects its independence, however, there is abundant evidence that the broadcaster is editorially independent.
There is no independent/oversight mechanism validating the independence of the publisher, but Belsat’s coverage has been repeatedly praised by EU institutions, journalists and democractic governments. The station’s intrepid journalism has won it a long list of awards and appreciation. There is no evidence that its journalists face any interference from the Polish government in their work.
October 2023