Minsk launches a clone of the British aggregator. In defiance of copyright
The aggregator’s Internet page, excerpted from Belarus’ 1 state TV report “Panorama”, in which several broadcasters were interviewed Source
As of February 2023, Belarusian citizens also have an app for listening to radio stations on the web, mobile devices, and smart TVs, Radio Player‘s website explains. Promoted by the Belarusian Broadcasting Industry Association, however, the app is a copy of one launched in 2010 in the United Kingdom and which has since spread to 13 other countries, not only in Europe. It allows listeners to listen only to radio stations based in the country, a feature designed by the British to protect copyright, but which in an authoritarian regime also allows citizens’ freedom of choice to be restricted. It is unclear whether it allows content to be sent to car infotainment systems-the Belarusian version’s website makes no mention of it. But how is it possible to violate copyright? Thanks to an “ad hoc” law that allows Western content to be used without the rights holder’s consent and without paying royalties. Approved on December 21, 2022, by the Belarusian parliament and signed by President Aleksander Lukashenko.
(From a post by Michel Fremy on Linkedin, edited by Fabrizio Carnevalini)
The radio channels of the public broadcaster. From the top: Pershy Kanal (heir to the station that started on 15 November 1925, with the announcement “Gavoryts Minsk!”), Radio Belarus (created in 1962), Kanal Kultura (described as “radio for intellectuals”, on the air since 1 January 2002), Radio Stalitsa (also known as Radio Capital, it is aimed at the capital region and has an original music selection that devotes a lot of space to hard rock), Radius FM (with a modern sound, in operation for 15 years) Source
In “White Russia”, a country where President Alexander Grigor’evič Lukashenko is increasingly tightening repression against free voices and journalists, there are more than 110 channels operating on old FM, from 66 to 73.8 MHz. Pershy Kanal, Kanal Kultura and Radio Stalista are the three stations of the Belarusian National Radio and Television Company (BTRC) that operate throughout the country. In addition to these, there are local stations, which are also in the orbit of the state broadcaster: Gomel FM, Radio Mogilev, Radio Grodno, Radio Brest, Radio Vitebsk (all in Russian language) and Radius FM which operates in the capital, Minsk.
A double net, FM and Oirt
An illustration on the Kanal Kultura website (and the table below) shows what the coverage looks like: for each purple circle (identifying the area served by a system in the OIRT band) there is a blue circle identifying the area served by a system in FM CCIR band. Source
According to our Belarusian correspondent Alexey Yankovsky, there are no plans to shut down transmitters in the OIRT band, only a few vague rumours, and there is probably still a good presence of receivers in homes. However, Alexey points out that the network is a duplication of the one in the CCIR FM band: for every transmitter in the 66-73.8 MHz range, another one has already been active for years from the same location in the 87.5-108 MHz range. The same is true for all the other broadcasters, except for Stalista which, in fact, is missing a few installations to have an ‘overlapping’ network. And the presence of these dual networks, in terms of both energy and maintenance costs, is likely to become an increasingly difficult cost for the BTRC to bear, especially after the pandemic: if a choice is necessary, it could be the OIRT network that is sacrificed. Already at the moment, the OIRT transmitters of all the various channels are generally only switched on from 6 or 7 a.m. until midnight, while the FM transmitters run for 24 hours.
PR1, the first program of Polskie Radio, has been quick to change programming transmitted on long wave by broadcasting special news briefings about the situation following the elections in Belarus Source
In order to smother the protests after the rigged elections that reconfirmed Alexander Lukashenko as the President of Belarus for the sixth time, the regime has censored radio transmissions and they now only broadcast music and entertainment programmes. As a result, Poland has begun transmitting programmes in Belarusian (with three news broadcasts per day) from the long wave radio station, Solec Kujawski, that transmits on 225 kHz and, with its 1000 kW power, can be received all over Europe. In addition, Radio Liberty (financed by the United States Congress) has been reactivated on 1386 kHz from Viesintos, Lithuania. The transmitter was formerly used in Germany by the American Forces Network (the broadcast service for American troops) on 873 kHz. When transmissions from Weisskirchen (near Frankfurt) ceased in May 2013, the relatively new transmitter was mothballed and later taken to Lithuania. The portal Radios du Monde dedicated an article to this.
