Belarusians TV starts broadcasting in U.S.

Belarus-TV channel is now available for viewers in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico and Guatemala from 28 March.

Belarus-TV’s entrance to the North American media market is not connected with foreign policy events. Alyaksandr Zimouski, chairman of the TV ad Radio Company, said it in Minsk on 8 April at the presentation of the annual financial report of the Belarusian TV and Radio Company for 2007.

According to him, starting of broadcasting of the Belarus-TV satellite channel in the U.S. concurred with “some tension in Belarus-U.S. relations.” We did not specially become attached to foreign policy events, it was a planned development of Belarus-TV” A. Zimouski said. “Whatever the international relegations were, Belarus-TV would enter media market of North American countries in any case.”

TV channel Belarus-TV is available for viewers in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico and Guatemala from 28 March. GlobeCast, owned by France Telecom, signed a contract on broadcasting with the Belarusian TV and Radio Company. Belarus TV is broadcasted via Galaxy 25 satellite in a bouque of channels such as Russian RTR-Planet, Ukrainian 1+1 International, Azerbaijani, Armenian and others.

As Valer Radutski, chief director of the TV channel administration, said the number of potential viewers of the channel was about 220 million people. The further plans of the TV channel are to start broadcasting in South America countries.