Opinions & Interviews
Over 600,000 monthly visits, new plans: BelTA chief on VIDEOBEL.BY future
An archive photo
MINSK, 9 September (BelTA) - The national multimedia portal VIDEOBEL.BY will mark its second anniversary on 12 September. The idea behind its creation and future development plans were discussed by Director General of the Belarusian Telegraph Agency BelTA Andrei Mokhor on the Current Microphone program of the First National Channel of Belarusian Radio, BelTA has learned.
“When the information confrontation in which we now live began, it became clear that we were too popular on Western platforms, such as YouTube. For the platform owners, the question of how to shield audiences from ‘inconvenient’ content was only a matter of time. In April 2026, BelTA’s YouTube channel, with over 2.3 million subscribers, was blocked without explanation, as were the channels of some of our colleagues. This was predictable and expected. To ensure that we could still be seen, a national media portal was needed. The VIDEOBEL.BY project was launched on 12 September 2024, a year and a half before the blocking of our YouTube channel. It was not created as an analogue or counterweight to Western video hosting platforms, but as a platform with servers in Belarus, with clear and transparent rules. It is a place where popular state media can host their video content. All leading Belarusian media are represented there: BelTA, TV channels, the SB. Belarus Segodnya, and regional media,” Andrei Mokhor explained.
Users can choose their preferred content in one place, watch live broadcasts, or use convenient time-shifted viewing. User interest in the resource is growing. Last month, visits exceeded 600,000. “This should be seen as an addition to the audience that watches the content of the represented publications in its classic form - on television or through cable operators. The volume of material is large and constantly growing. While dozens of projects were previously published, around 130 are now regularly released, with approximately 700 new videos per month,” the BelTA director general said.
The content promotion policy has been revised since April. “Regular readers of the BelTA website have noticed that some articles now include links to videos hosted on the VIDEOBEL.BY portal. There is a cross-pollination of audiences: after the links were added, the number of clicks on them grew by 30%. Since 1 January 2026, the site has been visited by over 2 million users, with tens of millions of views recorded. The geographic reach spans 161 countries. The Belarusian audience is predictably in the lead, but the top ten also includes the USA, Poland, Germany, and Israel. There is demand for content from Belarus in these countries,” Andrei Mokhor emphasized.
To mark the portal’s founding day, a mobile application for VIDEOBEL.BY has also been launched. iPhone users can download it from the App Store. For Android users, the app is available on RuStore, with a Google Play version currently in development.
The main feature of the VIDEOBEL.BY portal, according to the BelTA director general, is that the platform is exclusively for state media. “The operation of the platform is regulated by a presidential decree that clearly sets out the rules and criteria for participation. However, we are forced to respond to public demand and see a great deal of interest in bloggers. We are working in this direction and are considering the possibility of providing bloggers with a space for their content, although the timeline and prospects are not yet defined,” he added.
Andrei Mokhor also announced an event to mark the portal’s birthday: “A presentation is being prepared for 18 September at the Minsk Museum of Naive Art, so that viewers can come, see their favorite presenters and media personalities, interact, and meet the journalists working on this project.”
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