“I can’t believe it.” Belsat TV director announces huge cuts in channel’s budget

Agniesz­ka Romaszews­ka-Guzy, Direc­tor of Bel­sat, stat­ed that the TV channel’s bud­get was reduced by almost 50%. She empha­sized that no insti­tu­tion could endure such a sig­nif­i­cant reduc­tion.

Agniesz­ka Romaszews­ka-Guzy. Pho­to cred­it: Bela­PAN

“I can’t believe it,” wrote Agniesz­ka Romaszews­ka-Guzy on her Face­book page. “We received a nice present for Women’s Day – a de fac­to liq­ui­da­tion.”

She explained that Bel­sat is main­ly fund­ed by the Pol­ish For­eign Min­istry. Last year’s bud­get was 74 mil­lion zlo­tys, with 63 mil­lion from the MFA and 11 mil­lion from TVP. This year, the Min­istry of For­eign Affairs will pro­vide 40 mil­lion, while TVP will not con­tribute due to a lack of funds.

The direc­tor of Bel­sat believes that no insti­tu­tion, espe­cial­ly one that man­ages mon­ey very effi­cient­ly, can with­stand almost 50% bud­get cuts.

Agniesz­ka Romaszews­ka-Guzy list­ed the Bel­sat’s work areas:

• Belaru­sian news­room;
• Russ­ian news­room;
• Edit­ing of pro­grams;
• Inter­net news por­tal in Belaru­sian;
• Online news por­tal «Vot­Tak» in Russ­ian;
• Pol­ish lan­guage online news por­tal;
• Eng­lish lan­guage online news por­tal;
• Pro­gram prepa­ra­tion and cura­tor­ship;
• Social media depart­ment;
• YouTube sup­port depart­ment;
• Teletech­nics and infor­mat­ics depart­ment;
• Eco­nom­ics depart­ment;
• Audi­ence ana­lyt­ics depart­ment.