Greek public television goes off the air

For Eleftherotypia, the government's decision to shut down Greek public television and radio broadcaster ERT, after only few hours notice notice on June 11, was tantamount to “an execution”. At 11 PM, Greeks suddenly discovered in a farewell broadcast from the journalists of the channel that the government “in an unprecedented move – and not just for Greece – had shut down public broadcasting in the blink of an eye", writes the newspaper. On hearing the news, thousands of people gathered before the ERT to demonstrate. Private channels also stopped broadcasting for a few hours in solidarity.

According to Eleftherotypia —

… the Prime Minister's had been considering the decision for some time, because closing down the public body would enable it to meet the troika's demand to lay off 2,000 civil servants. And so it did just that, sending 2,656 employees to the unemployment lines.

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For the Athens daily, this hasty decision poses —

… an enormous problem for democracy by diminishing the plurality of information sources. The Greek people have the right to – and must have – an impartial, high quality public broadcaster.

"There were many things that were not going well at ERT", admits I Kathimerini. However, the daily continues —

For a long time successive governments, which felt that they had a clientele to keep happy and money to burn, treated it like most of the public sector. Its 19 local radio stations were marked by an intolerable level of mismanagement. […] But there were also many reasons to cherish ERT, which continued to make exceptional documentaries at a time when hardly anyone else in Greece was producing the goods, and its stations broadcast music that no one else would have aired.

Regarding the way the shutdown was carried out, the economic daily decries the fact that there was —

… neither a debate in Parliament nor a public debate, and no green light from the coalition partners – the New Democracy, the Socialists and the Democratic Left. Instead, it was done by legislative decree. The government spokesman was able to announce on TV that ERT had become a bottomless pit, which ate up €300m a year and produced mismanagement and inefficiency instead of good programming. […] ERT is one of many cases that the parties would like to sweep under the rug. What better way than to proceed with the shutdown of the broadcaster when the troika [of creditors] is in Athens and asking about the coalition’s pledge to lay off 2,000 civil servants by the summer?

For its part, the government has assured the nation that the closure is temporary, and that it will create a "new structure" "as soon as possible". Eleftherotypia believes that a bill on creating NERIT AE (a new Greek radio, internet and television broadcaster with a "much smaller" staff) is in the works. To protest against the closure of ERT, the country’s major public and private unions have announced a 24-hour general strike on Thursday.