Greece

Abstract

Television broadcasting in Greece was introduced in 1966, with the first network, ERT (Elliniki Radiofonia Tileorasi) broadcasting out of the capital Athens, as a state-owned monopoly. However, through-out the 1980s, as the country began to reform and modernise at an unprecedented pace, audiences demanded a wider choice of viewing options, following the example of other European countries which had already allowed private television. Also, as a member of the European Union, Greece had to adapt to TV market liberalisation policies pursued by the European Commission. But similarities with other European TV markets stop there, for the development of the Greek TV sector is distinctly different from that of most EU member states. In more particular: Public television took its first steps during a military junta (which ruled Greece between 1967–74), in an environment hostile to the development of objective TV broadcasts. The direct dependence of public television on political authority continued even after the restoration of democracy and undermined the validity and reliability of ERT. The problem was intensified by frequent changes in ERT’s management (much like in Spain) during the period 1984–94 when the Socialist party PASOK ruled. This was not conducive to long-term planning and action-taking. The process of liberalisation at the end of the 1980s was conducted without any prior economic analysis of the consequences on existing companies. Taking advantage of regulatory loopholes and the ineffective licensing regime, the Mayors of the three largest Greek cities of Athens, Piraeus and Thessalonika (all affiliated to the opposition conservative party New Democracy) set up unlicensed local TV stations, which offered more choice and lured the public. ERT was the main victim of this de-facto liberalisation as it lost a significant part of its advertising income almost overnight and today has in fact the lowest audience share of all PTV broadcasters reviewed in this study (below 15 per cent). The first attempt to regulate the TV sector occurred in the mid-1990s, but even at the time of writing private TV channels are operating under a quasi legal state as they only have provisional licenses. The penetration of cable and satellite services is negligible, mainly because of the wide availability of free-to-air national channels. KeywordsPublic BroadcasterNational CaseCurrent AffairPublic TelevisionPrivate ChannelThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.