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 News From You
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Week ending June 15, 2013
The European Broadcasting Union (EBU) today took the step of putting Greek broadcaster ERT’s news coverage back on air, allowing Greek satellite subscribers to watch NET, the station’s news channel, on television.
Until this afternoon, ERT’s output was only available via a live stream on the EBU website, redirected from ERT’s signal, which was carried back to EBU headquarters in Geneva. But EBU engineers have implemented a workaround to retransmit ERT’s signal via the EBU’s Athens earth station.
At around 3.45pm (CET) NET’s news programmes, being produced at ERT’s Thessaloniki studios despite the government order to cease operations, reappeared on Greek screens.
The signal is also being made available globally on these satellites: Hotbird 13A in Europe, APSTAR 7 in Asia, Intelsat 19 and Optus D2 in Oceania.
The decision to take steps to keep ERT on air was made by the EBU Executive Board on Wednesday.
DISCLAIMER: EBU Eurovision is merely providing technical support for the transmission of the Greek signal and assumes no editorial responsibility for the content.
Fifty public service media (PSM) leaders in 39 countries have rallied behind the shelved Greek broadcaster ERT by signing an EBU-led statement calling for the station to be restored to air immediately.
The signatories, which include the directors general of all of Europe’s most important public service media organizations, universally condemn the Greek government’s “undemocratic and unprofessional” course of action, which “undermines the existence of public service media in Greece”.
The statement, to which the directors general, presidents and chief executive officers, as well as several heads of international relations, have put their names, reads as follows:
“We, as Directors General of Europe’s public broadcasters, express our profound dismay at the action taken by the Greek Government on Tuesday, 11 June in shutting down ERT with immediate effect.
This undemocratic and unprofessional action of the Greek government undermines the existence of public service media in Greece and its independence from the government.
For that reason, we strongly urge the Greek Prime Minister to immediately reverse this decision, allowing ERT to go back on the air in Greece and we wholeheartedly support the open letter sent by the EBU President and Director General on 11 June 2013.”
Having collected the signatures in less than 24 hours, the EBU leadership has now sent the document to the Greek Government in a second letter urging Prime Minister Antonis Samaras to revoke the closure decree, while in addition appealing for at least one ERT TV channel to be left on air.
On Tuesday evening (June 11) EBU President Jean-Paul Philippot and Director General Ingrid Deltenre wrote an open letter to Mr Samaras urging him to see sense and pointing out that “public service media and their independence from Government lie at the heart of democratic societies”.
The move followed an emergency EBU Executive Board session held on Wednesday.
Today the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) expressed profound dismay on behalf of Europe’s entire public service media community at reports that ERT – a founding Member of the EBU in 1950 – has been shut down with immediate effect. Emergency powers granted to the Finance Minister and the competent Minister have been used to stop ERT’s transmissions, leaving Greek citizens wishing to watch ERT programmes in front of black screens.
In a letter sent today to the Greek Prime Minister, Antonis Samaras, the President of the EBU, Jean Paul Philippot and the EBU Director General, Ingrid Deltenre urged Mr Samaras “to use all his powers to immediately reverse this decision”.
The existence of public service media and their independence from government lie at the heart of democratic societies, and therefore any far-reaching changes to the public media system should only be decided after an open and inclusive democratic debate in Parliament – and not through a simple agreement between two government ministers.
In the letter, the EBU stresses the importance of public service media as an essential pillar of democratic and pluralistic societies across Europe.
The EBU President and DG go on to highlight that “While we recognize the need to make budgetary savings, national broadcasters are more important than ever at times of national difficulty. This is not to say that ERT need be managed less efficiently than a private company. Naturally, all public funds must be spent with the greatest of care.”
The EBU is on standby to offer its knowledge of Europe's public service media to provide the advice, assistance and expertise necessary for ERT to be preserved as a true public broadcaster in the European mould.
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