Greek public broadcaster ET3 defies government clamp down.

Greek public broadcaster ET3 defies government clamp down., a photo by Teacher Dude's BBQ on Flickr.

Despite raid by Greek riot police units this morning on Athens Broadcasting House (Radiomegaro), home of state broadcaster, ERT, the public broadcaster's studios in the northern port city of Thessaloniki continue to defy government crackdown.

Greek TV going down the tubes

Perhaps the easiest way to understand just exactly where the Greek economy is heading is to switch on the TV whilst here. Don't worry no knowledge of the language is required (many of the most popular series are in Turkish anyway), just the ability to cast a discerning eye over what is being shown and sold.  The first impression is that Greeks fashion tastes ossified sometime in the late 90's. Do they really think that is still cool? No, seriously? This misunderstanding stems from the fact that there are no new TV productions being made in Greece and so the stations are filling airtime with popular hits from the last couple of decades. This is also true for foreign imports such as Friends which is repeated so often you might be forgiven for believing Ross, Monica et al have created their own cult of personality.

The same goes for the adverts, gone are many of the slick Hollywood - style productions used by multi-nationals to push their wares, instead we have street barkers hawking carpets, dodgy diet products and perhaps the ugliest shoes on the planet, and all of this on prime time TV, even on the largest private stations.

In short, Greek TV like so much of the economy is in crisis and has sought to combat declining revenues by cutting back on spending and firing staff. And, as with the rest of the economy the results have been a miserable failure. Falling quality has driven away much of the TV's audience especially among the younger and well-educated who have migrated to the internet in search of something a little less trashy. Those left are happy enough with their daily diet of Turkish drama, gossip and b/w Greek movies from the 60's but they are a sign that TV in Greece is fading away as it's core audience gradually shuffles off this mortal coil, both just a shadow of their former selves.

To understand the reasons behind this decline is to understand the reasons why the Greek economy in general has suffered so badly over the last six years since in many respects they are are closely connected in ways it is often difficult  for outsiders to understand . The first thing to realise is that Greek TV was never really about making money, at least not in the way broadcasters usually do so. In most parts of the world a successful TV station makes it cash through bringing in as many viewers as possible and then using that to sell advertising. More viewers means more ad money which allows you to buy/create better programming which brings in more eyeballs etc, etc, etc.

However, in Greek economic universe there is often a kink. Whilst having as many viewers as possible is a given and ad revenue important too, neither has been the primary goal of the larger commercial stations. Instead these broadcasters are embedded in wider business empires and acted as the PR wings of the handful of very rich families that dominate much of the Greek economy. 

With these tools the owners of financial corporations, shipping lines, construction conglomerates etc. use the power of the media and especially that of the television to influence political policy. Parties and political careers can be nurtured, opponents embarrassed or vilified by suitably briefed reporters on the nightly newscast and in return all the owners required is a friendly ear in government. No wonder every self-respecting oligarch in Greece has, since private TV stations were permitted in 1989, sought to buy a TV channel, to go along with their newspapers and the inevitable football team.

However, as they ownership of the media has always been divided between a number of players the impression given to the outside world is that of plurality in which a variety of views and political opinions are expressed when in reality what is on offer are different interest groups vying for power and influence. The rewards for such influence are great; government contracts for major structural works, benign tax regimes, laws that effectively crush competitors are regularly doled out to those willing to support in power. In other words crony capitalism masquerading as a free economy in which those with the best connections to the State rather than the most efficient or innovative thrive.

However, the media sector was hit by a triple whammy after 2008 and the start of the current round of austerity measures. The crisis of confidence over that state of Greek banks mean that loss making media outlets could no longer rely on friendly banks to give no-strings attached loans, advertising revenue went into steep decline as multi-nationals cut back on their TV presence and the steady stream of State "support" dried up. Finally with public finances suddenly under close scrutiny many of the traditional means used to reward media supporters such as public works contracts, used by both PASOK and New Democracy parties became unavailable .

With Greece wavering on the edge of default and/or exit from the Eurozone, the stance of the owners of the country's media changed dramatically, instead of squabbling among themselves the TV stations and their sister newspapers suddenly came down hard of the side of any party or politicians most willing to implement the austerity measures being demanded by the Troika. The few outlets such as Alter TV or Eleutherotypia that refused to tow the line quickly found themselves in financial difficulties when banks refused to extend further lines of credit and so closed down.

On the other hand if it seemed that the government was dragging its feet then politicians would face the wrath of a vengeful journalists and commentators warning darkly that the nation risked wasting the hard won sacrifices made by ordinary Greek people for short term political gain.A warning that the oligarchs would not countenance any threat to their privileged place in the country's economy or open confrontation with the country's creditors and its attendant risk of default.

Such influence reached its peak (or nadir) in the 2012 elections when the Greek media along with much of foreign coverage painted SYRIZA as a threat to Greece's recovery and kept up an unrelenting campaign of of vilification against anyone advocating an end to austerity. Day after day, week after week, month after month the airwaves and front pages were filled with the doomsday scenarios that would accompany any attempt by Greek political forces to question the logic of austerity.

Likewise the supposedly independent public broadcaster ERT gradually lost more and more editorial control post 2008 as government sought to impose their own line and clamped down on even the faintest signs of resistance to the pro-austerity narrative playing upon the nation's screens nightly. The final act in that drama came in June when just two days after a strike that kept the prime minister off the air the government sent riot police to shut down transmission and fired all its employees leading to a three month war of nerves which continues to this day.

While the political situation may have stabilised Greek TV is still in crisis, the private TV stations so long, the playthings of rich oligarchs wishing to play political games are deeply in debt and stuck in a downward economic spiral in which every cut ensures fewer viewers and less revenue. And those who've gone are not coming back, once given a taster of the choice and variety the internet offers it is going to be next to impossible to lure people back to the TV screen with pitifully poor fare on offer at present. 

Deprived of access to government funds and cheap loans that have kept stations afloat till now they have become a mill stone around their owners' necks. Their primary purpose; their ability to set the political agenda  is now in severe decline, a victim of the public's distrust in news reporting whittled away away by endless stream of propaganda posing as news.

Even the parties the media relied upon to exercise power are waning, the government coalition partners, PASOK and New Democracy are seen by many voters as corrupt and beholden to the same wealthy individuals and family dynasties that own so much of the media. On the other hand Golden Dawn which has been largely excluded from the media has continued to grow in popularity at the expense of the two main parties in the coalition government, proof that TV's ability to make and break parties is fading.

So what happens next? The closure of ERT and the re-division of ad money to other stations will give the industry a slight boost for a while but in the middle to long term the situation look bleak. The lords of the small screen have been used to having enormous power for so long they disdained the internet as just a childish fad and did little to prepare for the new media landscape coming into being. They're have been half-hearted attempts to put their stations on mobile platforms such as Android but the reality is that the content is so poor that those most likely to use the service, namely the young are those least likely to be interested in what they have to offer. 

Most likely, media owners will do with their TV station what they did with their newspapers and run them into the ground, hoping that before they fail completely some second tier magnate will be persuaded by the fading glamour to take it off their hands.

ERT - Greek prime minister's plan for a surgical strike turns into war of attrition

Protests against government's closure of public broadcaster, ERT continue in Thessaloniki, Greece., a photo by Teacher Dude's BBQ on Flickr.

Like so many plans that go badly array, it must have seemed a great idea, at least in the beginning. With a bold move, the Greek prime minister, Antonis Samaras would at once show the country's lenders that his flagging reform program was back on tracks and appeal to his conservative base by getting rid of a symbol of public sector extravagance. What could go wrong?

Unfortunately for the Greek government just about everything. The decision 11 days ago by the ministry of finance to announce the immediate closure of Greece's public broadcaster, ERT set in motion a series of events that is now threatening to bring down the uneasy coalition that has been in power since last summer's elections. The departure of the Democratic Left from the three party coalition yesterday in protest over the handling of the ERT affair has seriously weakened the PM's hand  and revealed  that just how unstable the partnership with PASOK has become.

This is just one in a series of political miscalculations that has turned a political gamble into a political nightmare for Samaras, both at home and abroad, garnering yet more criticism and negative publicity for the country at exactly the time the leadership has been boasting to any media outlet who would listen of its success in turning the economy around.

The live TV images of ERT reporters warning of impending police action only to be replaced by a black screen shocked many Greeks, especially among the older generation who had witnessed similar media black outs during the Regime of the Colonels (1967-1974). For foreign observers such as The European Broadcast Union and the Head of the BBC the sudden cutting off of a public broadcaster whilst on air was unprecedented in post war Europe and a direct attack on democratic values and freedom of the press.

Instead of a few days of protests by the employees of ERT which could easily be ignored by pro-government private media the government was faced with a media insurrection as journalists and technicians defied threats by the authorities to continue broadcasting, using internet live streaming, unused analogue signals, satellite etc. This, along with the social media storm created meant that thousands turned up outside state run studios in Athens, Thessaloniki and other cities to protect   those inside from the riot police units that quickly deployed around such facilities.

Instead of stifling the voice of those working in ERT these actions encouraged people to find their signal in any way they could and demand via the live streaming channel provided by the EBU grew so rapidly it overwhelmed the site's capacity.

The quick surgical strike that New Democracy advisers had promised was now turning into a long drawn out and very public shouting match in which the government was being viewed as bullying autocrats rather than bold reformers taking on an arrogant publically funded elite. The decision by the Council of State that ERT be allowed to go back on air via its normal broadcast facilities was ignored so adding to the sense that Samaras was acting as if he and his ministers were above the law, a point the opposition SYRIZA party seized upon in order to appeal to disillusioned PASOK supporters, increasingly frustrated with their own party leadership.

Now the authorities are on the horns of a dilemma, if they back down over the ERT closure, then this will likely re-ignite anti-austerity opposition and provide a template for future battles over the sale off of publically owned power and water utilities. On the other hand a swift, police raid to empty the occupied broadcasting facilities would be a PR disaster, both at home and abroad as well as possibly shattering the fragile alliance with  the PASOK party.

So, probably the government will be forced to play the long game, hoping that as time goes by ERT employees can be bribed or coerced into agreeing to a watered down version of the original closure plan

Protests against government's closure of public broadcaster, ERTcontinue in Thessaloniki, Greece.

Protests against government's closure of public broadcaster, ERT continue in Thessaloniki, Greece., a photo by Teacher Dude's BBQ on Flickr.

ERT - Greek government embroiled in very public showdown with state run broadcaster.

Sitting in the foyer of the ET3 studios, now being occupied by its own journalists and technicians the strangest thought crossed my mind; those who were part of the groups protecting the building included some of the station's most bitter opponents. The same people that have been so critical of the willingness of public broadcasters to toe the government line and allow politicians such a free hand in domestic affair were now willing to stay there day and night and risk injury in the event of a riot police raid. The irony of the situation was not lost on them.

The sudden decision by the Samaras government to shut down ERT on Tuesday took even insiders by surprise, no one I talked to, be they journalists or political activists had expected that such a move would happen so quickly. That the government was looking to subject ERT to the same kinds of cuts as suffered by other areas of the public sector was obvious but the swiftness of the closure left everyone wondering what was really behind the action.



However, no one in the government, I suspect realised the the scale and determination of the reaction both from within Greece and abroad. Within hours technicians and journalists had stopped normal programming and were providing news and updates of the situation within the studios and suddenly, most miraculously of all, reporting on what was happening and not what they been told  by the government party leadership to cover.

It was this change in reporting which most probably prompted the Greek prime minister, Antonis Samaras's decision to send in the riot police to shut down transmission facilities across the country and the privately run DIGEA service to threaten other TV channels when they attempted to re-broadcast ERT's signal. The idea of journalists who has been privy to so many of the back room deals, dirty political tricks and acts of censorship going public with their knowledge must have terrified politicians used to always getting their way whenever they appeared on the state run channels.



For many older Greeks the announcement by NET TV presenter that the riot police were on the move followed by a black screen brought back memories of the Regime of the Colonels that ruled the country with iron fist from 1967 to 1974. Like Spain, and Portugal the experience of living under a dictatorship is still a vivid part of Greek popular memory and not simply a footnote is a school history book.

Unlike the 1970's the shutting down of the ERT signal has proved more problematic and technician have defied the crackdown using internet broadcasting, satellite signals (provided by the European Broadcasting Union) and resurrected analogue frequencies to ensure that NET in Athens and ET3 in Thessaloniki are still on the air. In its turn the authorities have tried to thwart these moves, shutting off telephone and internet connections to ERT facilities and in many parts of Athens and Thessaloniki, platoons of riot police have been stationed just a few hundred metres from ERT facilities.

As many Greek Twitter users repeatedly wrote; support of ERT was about defending democracy and not the status quo, so even groups opposed to the idea of a state run broadcaster were willing to stand shoulder to shoulder with sacked journalists in the demonstrations, marches and concerts that have been taken place in Athens, Thessaloniki and other Greek cities over the last five days.



The reason and timing behind the ERT closure has been a source of speculation for many political analysts in the media and beyond. For some the closure was a diversionary tactic designed to draw attention from the failure of the Greek - Russia GAZPROM deal that the prime minister had hailed as a "success story".. For others the move is the opening shot in a new round of elections that will allow New Democracy to dump both PASOK and Democratic Left coalition partners who are both doing badly in the polls in order to form a new government that will allow them top act more freely.

For what It's worth I believe that the closure of ERT is a political gamble by Samaras, who sees it as a way to kill several bird with one stone. In firing 2,600 public employees in such a swift and dramatic manner he thinks that he'll win point abroad with the Troika (ECB, EU and IMF) who have repeatedly criticised Greece for dragging its feet over public sector reforms.

Domestically, Samaras feels he can still sell the idea that he is a bold reformer taking on a corrupt, wasteful public organisation that is a burden to the tax payer. And finally, the the loss of so many media outlets will play well with the local oligarchs, upon whose support he relies upon more and more. Their own media wings are hemorrhaging cash as the economy continues to shrink and ad money dries up.

However, the gamble may not have paid off, international reactions from have been far greater and far more critical than Athens had probably expected and even local popular support for ERT is much higher than Samaras had anticipated, with 65% of those questioned in recent VPRC poll saying they disagreed with the decision to shut down the broadcaster.

So what happens next? Hard to say, on the one hand the PM has acknowledged that the loss of the so many stations was hasty and has offered to re-instate a limited number of ERT employees to run a skeleton service yet in this mornings speech he vowed to shut down the public broadcaster.

As with so many aspectsof current Greek political policy decisions change from day to day, with political opportunism being more of a guide than any grand plan or ideology.

More on this story via Asteris Masouras at Global Voices.

Greek public broadcaster defies govt crackdown - ET3 live stream via Seleo.gr here.

Streaming Live by Ustream

Financial crisis and the media: The failure of the Fourth Estate in Greece

As seen on TV., originally uploaded by Teacher Dude's BBQ.

It hardly comes as a surprise that the Greek media is less than impartial and that each part has its own line when it comes to political and financial issues. In the UK the fact that the Telegraph is a strong supporter of the Conservatives or the The Guardian has a left wing bent comes as a surprise to no one. Indeed this is one of the reasons readers choose one rather than the other. Here in Greece the same holds for TV stations as well as newspapers, though sometimes in less obvious ways as the nightly news bulletins aspire to respectability through trying to appear objective in their presentation of the day's events.

However, this veneer of objectivity has started to wear even thinner as the effects of Greece's economic crisis grow ever more apparent and the authorities desperately try to balance the demands of the country's creditors for cuts and reforms with a population deeply unhappy with the current state of affairs. This is most easily seen in the state run channels such as NET, ET1 and ET3 which nightly have a running commentary which is virtually indistinguishable from the official party line and like South Korea's “sunshine policy” attempts to avoid confrontation with government officials and present their policies in the best possible light. In other words spinning the administration's spin still further till the resulting story resembles something drafted by a Soviet era Pravda editorial team.

Case in point has been the visit to Athens by the IMF, EU, ECB trioka in order to negotiate the terms of Greece's next installment of the country's bailout package. The fact that the payment had been delayed was initially attributed by both the ERT news agency and the government to technical difficulties, which clashed with stories running in both Associated Press and Deutsche Welle that reported that the delay had been caused by the Austrian finance minister, Josef Proell threat to withhold his country's contribution to the bailout fund if Greece did not fulfill its obligation to raise more tax revenues. Other Greek media outlets did mention the news once it came out in the international press but even today there is no mention of Austria's role in the current negotiations in the state run ERT online news service .

In addition the recent government split between prime minister Giorgos Papandreou and employment minister Louka Katseli over whether Greece should accept the Trioka's demands for more flexible employment legislation and the abolition of industry wide contracts has been either underplayed or ignored. The disagreement between the minister and creditor's has threatened to derail talks over the terms and conditions of the multi – billion loan, yet today ERT top domestic news story is that foreign minister, Dimitris Droutsas has warned Turkey that failure to remove troops from Northern Cyprus will affect it EU application bid.

Unable to hide the fact that negotiations with the EU and IMF are not going as planned the government and it supporters in the media are attempting to divert attention elsewhere, preferably towards an external “enemy” in order to look tough on national issues. The reality is that such smoke and mirrors cannot hide the fact the Papandreou will almost certainly be forced to backtrack on pre -election promises not to implement further austerity measures further undermining his standing within the ruling PASOK party and the electorate in general.

It's also measure of how much the troika – Katseli affair has spooked the government and their media allies that the pro – government Skai TV channel news commentators were frantically demanding the minister return to the back benches and not disrupt talks that threaten to shipwreck the country. Such partisan statements in news bulletins means that even the pretense of neutrality is being dumped in a last ditch attempt to persuade viewers that Athens is in charge of the situation and not attempting to play a terrible hand of poker with all its cards on show.

Far away from the glare of the TV studio lights the majority of Greeks have written off both the media and the government convinced that neither can be trusted and that vital decisions concerning the future are no longer in the hands of their elected officials. With businesses closing at an ever faster rate and yet more VAT and tax hikes the reality of the situation is that Greece's future is grim and this can no longer be hidden. Despite almost Orwellian attempts by the seven state run outlets to call wage cuts, “readjustments” and the crisis an “opportunity” people are no longer listening to this daily diet of spin, evasion and PR hot air.

There is, however, still much to be learned from ERT (Greece's answer to the BBC) presentation of the news if one looks deep enough. Like sovietologists of old poring over the latest copy of Pravda there is a lot to be gleaned in the choice and order of news items. The first few items often give an insight into what PR line is being promoted which in turn allows the careful observer to understand what the authorities are most worried about. Hence last weeks triumphant headlines that Greece had secured the third tranche of cash from the EU was an indicator that there were doubts that over if the money would indeed be paid.

Similarly today's revanchist statements by the foreign minister is a fairly strong indicator that Papandreou's government is in deep trouble and is looking to create a diversion. Not that we will find out this from NET, ET1 etc but most likely from a TV station or newspaper supported by the opposition or more plausibly foreign media such as the BBC or Reuters. 

To understand why the local media is so bad and getting to the truth you have to understand the close, almost incestuous relationship between journalists and politicians. For the media news IS party politics, sometimes to the exclusion of virtually everything else and that access to sources is worth all kinds of compromises. This is not just a Greek phenomenon but the fact the mainstream political parties are able to reward the "right kind" of coverage with lucrative positions as "consultants" or even candidates in local and national elections means that many reporters do not bite the hand that feeds them.

Nor is the situation in the private sector much better as TV stations and other news outlets are owned by very rich men who use them as a way of gaining leverage with the state by supporting or criticising politicians and parties in order to win lucrative state contracts or to derail legislation not in their interest. In such an environment the Fourth Estate is simply a tool to be used to sway public opinion and so apply pressure when needed. 

On rare occasions where journalists do show integrity the cost is their livelihood as documentary film maker Stelios Koulaglou found out to his cost when he aired a documentary on the state run NET channel on unemployment critical of the then ruling New Democracy government. The result was  his instant dismissal and the end of a well respected TV series Reportage Horis Synora (Reporting Without Borders), which had been running since 1996 and had four times been awarded Best news Programme of the Year.