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New Greek Public Television starts with tongue-twister “EDT” and possibly illegal signal

After four weeks of blackened screens and color bars, Greeks saw a new logo on the three public broadcaster freguencies. And an abbreviation nobody can speak out: EDT. (Ελληνική Δημόσια Τηλεόραση) Meaning “Greek Public Television”.

EDT

 

A logo with color lines and a rolling globe at risk to slide out of the picture – to the left.

Daily Ta Nea reported Monday that the temporary EDT will broadcast films, series, children programs and documentaries.

The program is expected to launch on Wednesday afternoon.

With what personnel will EDT operate? Hired? Rented? Or what?

The new Greek Public Broadcaster does not mention the radio…

The EDT signal is on our TV screens, playing classical music. We have no idea when the program will be on air. No idea, what program will be on air and who will produce this program.

Neither do we know where the EDT signal is broadcasted from and whether the ‘anonymous’ broadcaster has a licence to do so.

“According to ERT’s former technical director, Nick Michalitsis, the signal is being transmitted from an old studio used by Mega, the country’s largest private broadcaster.

From there, it is being relayed by Digea, a digital broadcasting platform owned by the country’s six largest private stations, with assistance from telephone company OTE.

ERT staff are asking whether EDT has been approved by the state’s broadcasting regulator, the Greek National Council for Radio and Television (ESR). They also ask who is paying the staff working in EDT and on what kind of contracts.”  (enetenglish.gr)

ERT journalists and ERT personnel union POSPERT condemend the transmission as “illegal” and described it as “frequencies piracy”.

“The last mask fell from the authoritarian face of the govenrment,” they said in a statement.

“The fake copy of ERT is not authorized by the National Broadcasting Council, the Finance Ministry [now the manager of public broadcaster] has not launched a public tended and there is no contract published in the “open government”[where all public contracts and money spending have to be published]. 

For the broadcast of the EDT signal, a private company studio seems to be used. A studio that has been implicated into a cross production with ERT and for which case an preliminary investigation by a prosecutor is under way, ERT said in statement.

As the day proceeds… meanwhile we know where the signal is been broadcasted from: from the old studios of private MEGA television in Paiania. Already riot police squads have been sent there to protect the facilities.

Κλούβα των ΜΑΤ έξω από την είσοδο - ΦΩΤΟΓΡΑΦΙΑ NewsIt

more pictures and video here.

Several Greek media and websites report that the studios belong to company TVE. Main shareholders are two other companies (25% + 25%)  and several persons. The companies belong to media groups that are sharholders of private Mega channel.

The devil in detail

Minister Pantelis Kapsis is former employee of a company which is one of the main shareholders of Mega TV. The brother of Kapsis works for Mega. Furthermore, the son of the main shareholder of this company is a Nea Dimocratia MP.

This must be 100% pure coincidence, no?

Joke of the day

Minister Pantelis Kapsis appeared this morning on the morning magazine of Mega tv. The anchormen asked him  “From which facilities will EDT broadcast the program?”

“There has been a contract with a private studio,” Kapsis said and most likely forgot to give the correct information to the public.

Embedded image permalink

Incredible Greek internet users: looks what they found!

 

Transparency in the dark

Yes, we are in the dark. They keep us in the dark. They probaly think we didn’t need to know for what we pay our money for. They must be at odds with transparency…

Newly appointed minister responsible for the public broadcaster Pantelis Kapsis had announced two days ago, the transmission of the new temporary boradcaster EDT. Until the new one -NERIT- will start, probably in the autumn.

On June 11th, Prime minister Antonis Samaras unilateraly shutdown Greece’s public broadcaster ERT, blackened the tv screens and silenced the radios. The 2,656 people personnel were fired overnight.

The official justification for the shutdown of “sinful ERT” – so Samaras repeatdely – was corruption and favoritism. A former deputy PM from social PASOK even claimed that ERT was “communistized.”

It took the government several weeks to openly admit, it needed to show to the country’s lenders – the Troika – it had fired 2,000 people from a state institution in June.

Samaras shutdown ERT without taking into consideration objections by his two coalition government partners. PASOK remained in the government, but Democratic Left … left.

ERT continues piracy program

Meanwhilke the fired ERT personnel continues to occupy the ERT headquarters and broadcast a 24/7 program transmitted via the EBU and seen online.

Negotiations between the ERT personnel and the minister have not brought results so far as the government proposals are rather vague. The usual Greek tactics.

everything about ERT shutdown, you can read here

 

 

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