Television broadcasting in Greece began in 1966 and this was preceded in 1951 by statute 1663 permitting television broadcasting.[1]
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The two government channels, television being a government monopoly, during that period were ERT and YENED.[2]
After the collapse of the Greek Junta in 1974, ERT continue to dominate, appealing to a much larger audience than YENED . Color television broadcasts began in the late 1970s, and in 1982, ERT and YENED merged, forming "ERT" (Ellinikí Radiofonía Tileórasi), with ERT becoming "ERT1" and YENED becoming "ERT2."
Broadcasts originally lasted for seven to eight hours daily starting at about 5:30PM with children shows and then the first televised news of the day. In 1987 an experimental teletext type information screen known as "Tilegrafos" (meaning televised words) showed written information on ET2 during the afternoon. By the late 1980s, television broadcasts on ET1 and ET2 (still commonly known as EPT-1 and EPT-2 until later years) had increased to 12–15 hours daily, though it was still common for one or both stations to sign off briefly in the afternoon and sign back on in the early evening hours.
Some illegal broadcasts made short-lived appearances during the 1980s showing mainly movies of adult nature but, in 1987, the City of Thessaloniki established a TV station which began rebroadcasting in its frequency parts of European satellite channels, leading to a dispute between the government and the city, as the stations' equipment was confiscated numerous times . The more serious challenge to ERT's TV monopoly, however, appeared with the establishment and operation of TV Plus in the Athens/Piraeus area, which begun broadcasting major US films to the starved-for-diversity Athens public. It is then that ERT decided to pre-empt the challenge to its TV monopoly and any further attempts to put private broadcasts on the air, by re-broadcasting itself satellite channels. In October 1988, the first of these satellite channels made it to the airwaves in Athens to block the frequency used by TV Plus, and as this by-now very popular TV station kept changing frequencies, more and more satellite channels were added by ERT to block the frequencies used by TV Plus. They included: Super Channel from Great Britain, TV5 Europe from France, Sat.1 from Germany, RAIDUE from Italy, CNN International from the United States, and Horizon (from the former Soviet Union). These stations were soon followed by MTV Europe and Sky from the United Kingdom, while the broadcasts of Super Channel soon ceased, due to the lack of an actual agreement with EPT. Sky eventually morphed into what is now known as Eurosport, which is still rebroadcast in Greece, and Euronews, RAIUNO and Cyprus SAT were eventually added to the lineup. For a short time, NBC Super Channel was also rebroadcast, as were RTL Plus from Germany and 3Sat.
In 1988, EPT also established ET3 a regional state-owned network which focused on issues of Northern Greece, to counter the Athens-centric broadcasts of the other two major state broadcasters at the time. Initially a regional network based in Thessaloniki, ET3 also began broadcasting in Athens, and within a few years, in most other regions of the country.
Thessaloniki was the home of Greece's first non-state owned television station, TV100, owned by the City of Thessaloniki, and TV Plus was the first non-state television station in the Athens region. TV Plus, was owned by Invest Plus SA, a US group headed by Daniel Bourla, with the participation of the Municipality of Piraeus, and its programming was quite innovative for Greek standards at the time, as it broadcast first-run Hollywood feature films with subtitles and no commercials. Soon, TV Plus began to offer a terrestrial subscription service, broadcasting an encoded signal 24-hours a day, which viewers could watch by obtaining a decoder (provided for free by the station) and paying a monthly subscription fee. This was especially revolutionary at the time, as a legal framework for private broadcasting, and private broadcasters, still did not exist in the country.
EPT did not take too kindly to the new television stations which began to crop up on the dial, often changing the frequencies of its own stations around or adding repeaters, to interfere with the private broadcasts. However, in 1989, the Greek Parliament finally passed legislation legalizing private broadcasting (radio and television) and providing provisional licenses to two broadcasters, Mega Channel and Nea Tileorasi (New Television). Mega Channel began officially broadcasting in November, 1989 as a national network, while Nea Tileorasi, after several months of broadcasting test bars, disappeared from the airwaves.
Other private broadcasters took advantage of loopholes in the existing legislation and the lack of an organized licensing process to begin broadcasting almost overnight. In December 1989, Antenna TV began broadcasting nationally, named after the successful new radio station by the same name. Mega and Antenna featured similar programming styles, with locally produced comedies and dramas, numerous variety shows (following in the Italian tradition), American films, and tabloid news broadcasts. They immediately won over most of EPT's audience and advertising share, and to this day, are interchangeably the #1 and #2 stations in the audience ratings in Greece, while the ratings of ET1, ET2, and ET3 plummeted (they have recovered significantly since then but still do not challenge the major private networks).
By early 1990, numerous other stations also appeared on the air, including New Channel (no relation to Nea Tileorasi) with movies, music videos and talk shows, Channel Seven-X (with avant-garde programming including foreign films, intellectual programming and a simulcast of French music network MCM), Jeronimo Groovy TV (initially a popular music video station that broadcast in Athens, amidst serious interference from other stations), TeleCity (a right-wing political television station with news and talk shows), 902 TV (owned by the Communist Party of Greece), Kanali 29 (a television station with political and cultural programs and a cult following), and a plethora of other broadcasters, which filled every available VHF and UHF frequency, often broadcasting only for several weeks or months, or with very little programming of note. Many broadcasters even began to broadcast on the same frequencies as other stations, especially EPT's satellite broadcasts, many of which soon completely disappeared from the airwaves, as EPT seemed unwilling or unable to protect its frequencies. Similarly, private stations sprung up throughout the country, in every city and region and most towns.
The color television transmission system SECAM which had been used since the late 1970s finally switched over to the PAL color system widely used in the rest of Europe. PAL was the system used for years in Greece via video tape playbacks on rented movies from video stores but not by ERT. The first TV station to broadcast in PAL was TV Plus, then by the other private TV stations that followed it and eventually by ERT.
In 1993, two new major players entered the market. Skai TV began broadcasting, after a prolonged battle for open frequencies with EPT and other stations, and soon began to broadcast as a new national network following in the footsteps of the highly-rated Skai radio station in Athens. Also in 1993, Kanali 29's management was handed over to Niko Mastorakis, who was once again involved in Greek media after a long stint as a movie producer and director in the United States. Kanali 29 was renamed Star Channel, and featured programming rich in American films and TV series, and talk and lifestyle programmes. Star also began to broadcast nationally.
The following year, EPT decommissioned many of its terrestrial satellite broadcasts, and reassigned many of those now-vacant frequencies to Multichoice Hellas, for terrestrial pay-television services a year after TV Plus went off the air following a dispute with Time Warner that had acquired a 25% interest in the company. The name of this new pay-tv service was Filmnet. In 1995, Multichoice followed with another station, Supersport, which soon earned the broadcast rights to many Greek sports.
In 1997, EPT, whose audience had never recovered from the advent of private television, and which up until then lagged behind technologically compared to the largest private networks, revamped its operations, unveiling new logos and a new programming philosophy. The stations were modernized, and ET2 was renamed "NET" (Nea Elliniki Tileorassi). ET1 focused on general-interest programming (movies, sports, various TV series), while NET focused heavily on news and talk programming. ET3 continued to focus largely on Northern Greece, with a large dose of cultural programming.
By the late 1990s, Greece began to see its first major mergers and acquisitions (some of them ill-fated) in the realm of broadcast media. Skai TV was sold, and soon became known as "Alpha-Sky" before completely phasing in to its new name as Alpha TV. Kanali 5, a regional television network broadcasting out of Athens, by the former owners of Kanali 29 (and with similar programming to that station), was also revamped, transitioning to "Alter 5" (with a program aimed largely at teenagers and young adults) before fully renaming itself to Alter. Its broadcast reach also gradually expanded, and the station now covers almost the entire country. Channel Seven-X, facing financial difficulties, was also sold, and was renamed Seven, featuring programming heavy on sports and news/talk programs. Seven never quite achieved the success of some of the other stations, as it continued to face financial difficulties even after the sale, and never was able to broadcast outside of certain large cities in the country. New Channel, which broadcast in many major cities but did not offer much original programming, was sold to a new investor and renamed "New Tempo" and finally "Tempo TV", building up a national network of repeaters in an effort to become a major player in the television market, which it partially succeeded, before financial troubles led to its failure in 2001. Finally, Macedonia TV, a regional private network broadcasting out of Thessaloniki, was purchased by the Antenna TV group, and has served as a secondary network featuring many old programs from Antenna TV, American TV series, and a newscast focusing on Northern Greece. The station now also broadcasts nationally.
Specialty networks had also begun to form. In 1992, TVC, Greece's first 24/24h music channel, began operating in Lesvos island. The channel during the 00's reformed into the pan-European Music Force Europe, today available in 3 countries. Then, in 1996, Mad TV began operating out of Athens, replacing a small local channel known as Art 68. Mad TV featured programming heavy on hit music videos, similar to MTV and its Greek predecessor Jeronimo Groovy TV (which continued to exist but with a small coverage area and with programming more heavily dependent on talk); both channels, in opposition to TVC, operated in a few-hour rotation. Mad TV did not build a national network of its own, but instead was rebroadcast through local stations throughout the country. TV 0-6 began broadcasting in Athens, with many cartoons and children's shows, while TV Magic, after an ill-fated attempt to become a news-talk station owned by Socrates Kokkalis, became a station focusing on sports and particularly of Greek sports club Olympiacos, which Kokkalis also owned. Extra Channel was founded in 2000 with a heavy talk focus, and is now known as Extra 3.
In 1999, Multichoice Hellas also formed Nova, Greece's first satellite television subscription service, which initially featured most (but not all) of Greece's major networks, as well as many international networks, and other music and interactive services, which it has continued to expand since then. Nova was to be followed by a competing satellite platform, known as "Magna", by the owners of Seven, which never began operations.
In 2000, Alpha TV founded Alpha Digital, which broadcast Alpha TV, Polis TV (a local station serving Athens owned by Alpha) various thematic stations also operated by Alpha, the radio stations owned by the Alpha group, and a small variety of foreign television networks, headlined by MTV and VH1 (MTV, by that time, was no longer rebroadcast terrestrially in Greece, that ceased in 1999). Despite the popularity of MTV and VH1 and Alpha earning the rights to Greek soccer matches, the company soon went under, leaving Nova as the only company providing pay-TV services in Greece to this day. Plans for a satellite bouquet managed by OTE (the Greek telecommunications company) never went past the test phase, with OTE leasing frequencies on the Hotbird satellite, rebroadcasting several smaller Greek TV stations as well as many radio stations free-to-air.
The past few years have seen the failure of many television ventures, but the creation and investment in many new ones. Polis TV was relaunched as Channel 9 in December 2005, with programming heavy on news and talk shows. More recently, the original owners of Skai TV returned to the television business, relaunching Skai on the frequencies of Seven TV. Other notable stations that have begun operating in recent years include Channel 10, while TeleCity was renamed Tileasty. Other stations have upgraded and modernized, however, the Greek airwaves are still cluttered with many unlicensed television stations, often broadcasting programs of a low quality (telemarketing, low budget movies, music videos, illegal telephone hotlines, soft pornography).
To this day, the Greek government still has not issued official licenses to most television stations in Greece, which are currently broadcasting in a quasi-legal state. Tenders have been offered for national, regional and local broadcasts as well as terrestrial pay-TV services, which have either been frozen or have failed completely. Despite numerous government pledges, there has not been much movement on this issue in recent years. In the meantime, the airwaves are still cluttered, though things are significantly more organized than they were in the early 1990s. Despite the success of Nova, and the launch of Hellas SAT, cable TV has been slow to follow, only existing on a local level in some communities around Greece until recently, when companies such as OnTelecoms have launched cable (IPTV) platforms.
Today, Greece has four national state-owned networks, three state-owned national digital television networks, a state-owned satellite broadcast network, and several national private television network, in addition to approximately 150 local and regional television stations broadcasting across the country. Audience ratings are handled by AGB Hellas.
In 2005, Alpha TV briefly ran experimental broadcasts in DVB-T locally in Athens, while in Heraklion, Crete, a regional network, Kriti TV, in conjunction with the University of Crete, also started digital operation.
In January 2006, the State broadcaster ERT launched free-to-air Digital Terrestrial Television (DVB-T) with three "pilot" channels called Prisma+, Cine+ and Sport+, collectively branded as ERT Digital. The first channel, Prisma+, was targeted at disabled persons, while Cine+ broadcasts movies, and Sport+ broadcasts a sports program. A fourth channel, the Cypriot national channel's satellite program RIK sat, was also retransmitted on digital.
From September 2009 onwards, the seven major television stations in Greece broadcast in DVB-T MPEG-4, via a company set up by them, DIGEA. Because of the concentration of the population in a few cities, about 75% of the Greeks are now able to view DTT, although only a small proportion of the geographical area of Greece is covered. Areas covered (as at August 2011) include Attica, Thessalonica, Larissa, Alexandropolis, the Corinthian Gulf, and Rhodes Town.
A set-top box or a digital-ready TV is required to view digital channels.
There is currently no cable television system in Greece but since 2006 two companies offer television service via IPTV, they are Vivodi Telecom and On Telecoms.
They currently offer television service bundled with High-speed Internet & Telephony services. There channel offerings include local Greek networks, international stations and pay-TV networks Nova Cinema & Nova Sports that are made available to subscribers via an agreement with Greek DTH provider NOVA.
In 2009, Greek Telecommunications giant OTE launched IPTV service called Conn-x TV which will initially be available in Athens, Thessaloniki, Patras, Larisa & Iraklion. [1]. Greek broadband provider Hellas On-Line also launched an IPTV platform called hol tv. [2] Hol tv offers all major Greek networks as well as news, sports, music and children's channels. It is also the first provider in Greece to offer HDTV as well as Video on demand.
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