The plan of Greek government to ask TV owners to pay to licenses and also limit the number of private television channels broadcasting nationwide down to four has triggered a war – one of the usual Greek wars where everyone is against everyone with political parties ready to fall in the battle field defending petty interests and unions taking the usual fight position: strike. So when the TV licenses draft law will be debated in the parliament plenary on Thursday afternoon and evening, the media will be on work stoppage and thus from 6 pm till midnight.
The starting price for each of the four television channels will be determined by a joint decision of Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos and the State Minister responsible for the media Nikos Pappas. Media reported a couple of days ago that the price of each license would be around 3.5 million euro.
According to government sources, the government’s main aim is the economic viability of the broadcasting companies so that market distortions are averted as well as excessive lending.
The draft law stipulates that the television companies must be financially stable and have 400 employees. Greek Journalists Union ESIEA fears of massive job loses for journalists working in television channels.
The government apparently proposes that TV channel companies merge with each other.
Some info on Greek Private TV here.
PS you want me to write about the debts of Greek TV channels? that’s would be subject of a PhD thesis paper…
