Television broadcasting
A television network or television broadcaster is a telecommunications network for distribution of television program content, where a central operation provides programming to many television stations or pay television providers. Until the mid- ...
in
Greece
Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders ...
began in 1966, preceded in 1951 by statute 1963 permitting television broadcasting.
[Η ιστορία της τηλεόρασης]
Kathimerini.gr, 18 April 2011.
History
First broadcast
The first television broadcast in Greece became a reality during the 25th
Thessaloniki International Fair
The Thessaloniki International Fair ( el, Διεθνής Έκθεση Θεσσαλονίκης, ''Diethnis Ekthesi Thessalonikis''), abbreviated TIF (ΔΕΘ), is an annual international exhibition event held in Thessaloniki, Greece's second-large ...
(3 September 1960). The Studios were organized by the
Public Power Corporation (ΔΕΗ) pavilion, supplied by Philips, along with other locally improvised equipment. Some years later, a small private station started operating round the year from another pavilion in the very same Fair. This station operated until 1968 when the two new government channels started operation in Thessaloniki and requested the elimination of the "illegal" station.
The two government channels, which held a television monopoly, during that period were
ERT and
YENED The Armed Forces Information Service ( el, Υπηρεσία Ενημερώσεως Ενόπλων Δυνάμεων, ΥΕΝΕΔ, ''Ypiresia Enimeroseos Enoplon Dynameon'', ''YENED'') was the television and radio station of the Greek Armed Forces, ope ...
(for the military forces).
A third state TV channel, its closure and color TV in Greece
After the construction of the
OTE
OTE is the national telecommunications provider of Greece.
OTE may also refer to:
* Ocean thermal energy conversion, a renewable energy source
* Oda of Haldensleben (978–1023), daughter of the Margrave of the North March, Theoderich
* On-ta ...
Tower in the Thessaloniki Fair area, OTE started a third state TV channel in the
SECAM
SECAM, also written SÉCAM (, ''Séquentiel de couleur à mémoire'', French for ''color sequential with memory''), is an analog color television system that was used in France, some parts of Europe and Africa, and Russia. It was one of th ...
color format. The two initial state channels requested the closing and elimination of the new OTE channel, fearing that OTE would drive them to close, because of the superiority of the color picture, the telecommunications network and the technical superiority of OTE. They succeeded and all the equipment, that OTE already had, passed to YENED, which started what now became
ERT3
ERT3 ( el, ΕΡΤ3, "ERT Tria") is a Greek free-to-air television channel owned and operated by state-owned public broadcaster Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation ( el, EPT – Ελληνική Ραδιοφωνία Τηλεόραση). It is an en ...
, still broadcasting from Thessaloniki to this day. During the Greek military government period of 1967–74, the programs were a mixture of news and entertainment. A notable serial which still owns the watching record was the war drama ''O Agnostos Polemos'' (The Unknown War).
After the restoration of the Republic in 1974, the
Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation
The Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation ( el, Ελληνική Ραδιοφωνία Τηλεόραση AE, Ellinikí Radiofonía Tileórasi SA) or ERT () is the state-owned public radio and television broadcaster of Greece.
History Overview
ERT b ...
continue to dominate, appealing to a much larger audience than YENED. Color television broadcasts began in the late 1970s and notable people were placed to improve the quality of the national channels, such as
Dimitris Horn
Dimitris Horn () (9 March 1921 – 16 January 1998) was a Greek theatrical and film performer of modern times.
Biography
Horn was born in Athens in 1921, the son of playwright Pantelis Horn (himself descended from an Austrian father and Greek mot ...
,
Manos Hatzidakis
Manos Hatzidakis (also spelled Hadjidakis; el, Μάνος Χατζιδάκις; 23 October 1925 – 15 June 1994) was a Greek composer and theorist of Greek music, widely considered to be one of the greatest Greek composers and one of the most ...
and the Nobel laureate poet
Odysseas Elytis
Odysseas Elytis ( el, Οδυσσέας Ελύτης , pen name of Odysseas Alepoudellis, el, Οδυσσέας Αλεπουδέλλης; 2 November 1911 – 18 March 1996) was a Greek poet, man of letters, essayist and translator, regarded as th ...
. Color television was officially introduced in 1979, using the French
SECAM
SECAM, also written SÉCAM (, ''Séquentiel de couleur à mémoire'', French for ''color sequential with memory''), is an analog color television system that was used in France, some parts of Europe and Africa, and Russia. It was one of th ...
system. ERT would later merge with YENED in 1982.
The merger of ERT and YENED
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
A British Ceefax football index page from October 2009, showing the three-digit page numbers for a variety of football news stories
Teletext, or broadcast teletext, is a standard for displaying text and rudimentary graphics on suitably equipp ...
type information screen known as "Tilegrafos" (meaning televised words, i.e. telegraph) showed written information on ET2 during the afternoon. By the late 1980s, television broadcasts on ET1 and ET2 (still commonly known as ERT-1 and ERT-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.
Illegal broadcasts, disputes between the government and Thessaloniki, constant frequency changes, and challenges to ERT's monopoly
Some illegal broadcasts made short-lived appearances during the 1980s showing mainly movies of adult nature but, in 1987, the City of Thessaloniki began rebroadcasting in a television frequency parts of European satellite channels, leading to a dispute between the government and the city, as the station's 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 Piraeus area, which begun broadcasting major US films to the starved-for-diversity people of Athens. 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 foreign 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 popular TV station kept changing its frequency, more and more satellite channels were added by ERT to block the frequencies used by TV Plus. They included:
Super Channel from the United Kingdom,
TV5 from France,
Sat.1 from Germany,
Rai 2
Rai 2 is an Italian free-to-air television channel owned and operated by state-owned public broadcaster RAI – Radiotelevisione italiana. It is the company's second television channel, and is known for broadcasting ''TG2'' news bulletins, tal ...
from Italy, and
Soviet Central Television
The Central Television of the USSR (russian: Центральное телевидение СССР, translit=Tsentral'noye televideniye SSSR; abbr. CT USSR .html" ;"title="/nowiki>">/nowiki>/nowiki>) was the state television broadcaster of the ...
from the Soviet Union via the Horizon satellite. These stations were soon followed by
MTV Europe
MTV Global (formerly as MTV Europe) is the international version of the American TV channel MTV, a 24-hour music and entertainment TV channel that began broadcasting on August 1, 1987, as part of the worldwide MTV network.
Initially, MTV serve ...
and
Sky
The sky is an unobstructed view upward from the surface of the Earth. It includes the atmosphere and outer space. It may also be considered a place between the ground and outer space, thus distinct from outer space.
In the field of astronomy, ...
from the United Kingdom, while the broadcasts of Super Channel was taken over by TV Plus, due to the lack of an actual agreement with ERT. Sky eventually morphed into what is now known as Eurosport, which is still rebroadcast in Greece, and
Euronews,
Rai 1
Rai 1 () is an Italian free-to-air television channel owned and operated by state-owned public broadcaster RAI – Radiotelevisione italiana. It is the company's flagship television channel, and is known for broadcasting mainstream and gener ...
and
Cyprus SAT were eventually added to the lineup. For a short time,
NBC Europe
NBC Europe (formerly Super Channel, and later NBC Channel) was a satellite television network based in the United Kingdom that broadcast across Europe, and it was picked up by various European cable systems where available.
The network was base ...
was also rebroadcast, as were
RTL Plus
RTL (from '), formerly RTL plus and RTL Television, is a German-language free-to-air television channel owned by the RTL Group, headquartered in Cologne. Founded as an offshoot of the German-language radio programme '' ,'' RTL is consider ...
and
3sat
In logic and computer science, the Boolean satisfiability problem (sometimes called propositional satisfiability problem and abbreviated SATISFIABILITY, SAT or B-SAT) is the problem of determining if there exists an interpretation that satisfies ...
from Germany.
Establishment of regional channels
In 1988, ERT 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
Thessaloniki (; el, Θεσσαλονίκη, , also known as Thessalonica (), Saloniki, or Salonica (), is the second-largest city in Greece, with over one million inhabitants in its metropolitan area, and the capital of the geographic region of ...
, ET3 also began broadcasting in Athens, and within a few years, in most other regions of the country.
The end of the state-owned monopoly on television
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 an over-the-air 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.
ERT did not take too kindly to the new television stations which began to crop up on the dial following the governments unsuccessful attempts to stop TV Plus, often changing the frequencies of its own stations around or adding repeaters, to interfere with new 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
MEGA Channel, also known as MEGA TV or just MEGA, is a television network in Greece, that broadcasts a mix of foreign and Greek programming.
It is the first and the oldest private television network in Greece.
History Mega Channel (1989–2018) ...
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
Antenna TV is an American digital television network owned by Nexstar Media Group. The network's programming consists of classic television series, primarily sitcoms, from the 1950s to the 1990s. Antenna TV's programming and advertising operati ...
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 ERT'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).
Growth of private broadcasters
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 TV 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 station with news and talk shows),
902 TV
902 TV was a television station in Greece that was supported by the Communist Party of Greece.
It featured general entertainment programming and was available throughout Greece. On September 10, 2012, ceased operations due to financial difficult ...
(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 ERT's satellite broadcasts, many of which soon completely disappeared from the airwaves, as ERT seemed unwilling or unable to protect its frequencies. Similarly, private stations sprung up throughout the country, in every city and region and most towns.
SECAM to PAL color switchover
The
color television transmission system
SECAM
SECAM, also written SÉCAM (, ''Séquentiel de couleur à mémoire'', French for ''color sequential with memory''), is an analog color television system that was used in France, some parts of Europe and Africa, and Russia. It was one of th ...
which had been used since the late 1970s finally switched over to the
PAL
Phase Alternating Line (PAL) is a colour encoding system for analogue television. It was one of three major analogue colour television standards, the others being NTSC and SECAM. In most countries it was broadcast at 625 lines, 50 fields (25 ...
color system widely used in the rest of Europe.
PAL
Phase Alternating Line (PAL) is a colour encoding system for analogue television. It was one of three major analogue colour television standards, the others being NTSC and SECAM. In most countries it was broadcast at 625 lines, 50 fields (25 ...
was the system used for years in Greece via video tape playbacks on rented movies from video stores but not by ERT. The first station to broadcast in
PAL
Phase Alternating Line (PAL) is a colour encoding system for analogue television. It was one of three major analogue colour television standards, the others being NTSC and SECAM. In most countries it was broadcast at 625 lines, 50 fields (25 ...
was TV Plus. Many other private stations also followed suit and eventually by ERT.
Continued growth of private and specialty TV, and mergers and acquisitions
In 1993, two new major players entered the market.
Skai TV
Skai TV (Greek: ΣΚΑΪ) is a Greek free-to-air television network based in Piraeus. It is part of the Skai Group, one of the largest media groups in the country. It was relaunched in its present form on 1 April 2006 in the Athens metropolit ...
began broadcasting, after a prolonged battle for open frequencies with ERT 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, ERT decommissioned many of its terrestrial satellite broadcasts, and reassigned many of those now-vacant frequencies to Multichoice Hellas, for terrestrial pay services a year after TV Plus went off the air following a dispute with
Time Warner
Warner Media, LLC ( traded as WarnerMedia) was an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate. It was headquartered at the 30 Hudson Yards complex in New York City, United States.
It was originally established in 1972 by ...
that had acquired a 25% interest in the company. The name of this new pay-TV service was
Filmnet
FilmNet was the name used for several premium television channels in Europe during the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s. It was launched on 9 March 1985, broadcasting with a focus on Scandinavia, the Netherlands and the northern part of Belgium (Flanders). ...
. In 1995, Multichoice followed with another station,
Supersport, which soon earned the broadcast rights to many Greek sports.
In 1997, ERT, 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 into its current name as
Alpha. 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 in, before financial troubles led to its failure in 2001. Finally,
Makedonia TV
Makedonia TV (Greek: Μακεδονία TV) is a Greek private national free-to-air television channel broadcasting from Marousi, Athens and earlier from Thessaloniki, the capital of Macedonia in Greece. It was founded in 1991 by a group of jour ...
, a regional private network broadcasting out of Thessaloniki, was purchased by the
Antenna 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 24h music channel, began operating in Lesvos island. The channel during the 2000s reformed into the pan-European
Music Force Europe, available in 3 countries. Then, in 1996,
Mad TV
''Mad TV'' (stylized as ''MADtv'') is an American sketch comedy television series originally inspired by '' Mad'' magazine. In its initial run, it aired on Fox from 1995 to 2009. After a one-off reunion show in 2015 to celebrate the twentie ...
began operating out of Athens, replacing a small local channel known as ''Art 68''. Mad TV featured programming heavy on hit music clips, 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
Smile TV is a channel on television in Greece which broadcasts cartoons and other shows for children ages four to eleven.
Programming
*''The Last of the Mohicans''
*''Sandokan: The Tiger roars again''
*''Journey to the West – Legends of the M ...
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
Sokratis Kokkalis
Sokratis Kokkalis (Greek: Σωκράτης Κόκκαλης; 1939) is a Greek businessman. His father, Petros Kokkalis, was a communist politician and Greek Resistance member, living in exile in East Germany after the end of the Greek Civil W ...
, became a station focusing on sports and particularly of Greek sports club
Olympiacos
Olympiacós Sýndesmos Filáthlon Peiraiós ( el, Ολυμπιακός Σύνδεσμος Φιλάθλων Πειραιώς, Olympic Club of Fans of Piraeus) is a major multi-sport club based in Piraeus, Greece. Olympiacos is parent to a number ...
, 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.
Satellite television, failed ventures and the investment and creation of new ventures
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
Hot Bird 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
Skai TV (Greek: ΣΚΑΪ) is a Greek free-to-air television network based in Piraeus. It is part of the Skai Group, one of the largest media groups in the country. It was relaunched in its present form on 1 April 2006 in the Athens metropolit ...
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).
Status of broadcast licenses and the quasi-legal status
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
Hellas Sat Consortium Ltd (Hellas Sat) is the owner and a wholesaler of capacity and services of the Greek/Cypriot Hellas Sat 2 satellite, an Astrium Eurostar E2000+, which was launched successfully on 13 May 2003 to the 39th eastern meridian o ...
, 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.
Greek debt crisis, budget cuts, and the closure of private broadcasters
By the early 2010s, all of the Greek television stations suffered the consequences of the country's debt crisis. In this decade two major Panhellenic stations ceased operations due to economic difficulties. Alter stopped its operation on 10 February 2012, after a history of more than 20 years.
Most channels cut their budget by decreasing their original programming (mostly their original series). Except for the high number of reruns, networks started airing a lot of foreign programs, the majority of them being Turkish drama shows.
The beginning of HD broadcasting and the closure of ERT
On 27 April 2011, the first transmission of a high definition free-to-air channel was made by the state-owned ERT HD.
Two years later, on 11 June 2013, the Greek Government suspended the operation of the Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation (ERT) and automatically fired 2,600 workers, in one of the numerous spending cuts that have been implemented during Greece's ongoing debt crisis. The plug was pulled at 23:10 during the news.
On 11 June 2015, the new Government (made up of SYRIZA & AN.EL. parties) reinstated the operations of ERT by hiring back the personnel and broadcasting the three ERT channels ERT1, ERT2, ERT3.
The selling of 902 TV
On late 2013, 902 TV, owned by the Communist Party, was sold to a Cypriot-based company A-Orizon Media Ltd.
On 11 September, of the same year, the channel was renamed to Epsilon TV. After four years, the network once again sold, this time to Ivan Savides' company Dimera Media Investments Limited. On 24 August 2018, Epsilon TV was replaced by OPEN BEYOND.
The continuation of HD broadcasting and the closure of Mega
Since early 2016, most Panhellenic networks began pilot high definition transmissions to a limited number of cities.
By the end of the season, the channel Mega, the oldest privately owned national television station, stopped all live broadcasts, after a worker strike, due to its workers being unpaid for several months. The network continued broadcasting only reruns of old shows for more than two years, however, its ratings didn't hit the bottom. The network was forced to stop its transmission on 28 October 2018, at 02:08 am, after almost 3 decades from its launch. Viewers paid a tribute to the network at its final hours. Mega achieved a share of 17,5% (22,5% on 15–44 age group), one of the highest rating stations in the country at the time.
By the end of 2019, Vaggelis Marinakis purchased the network's archives (programs, shows and footage) and logo.
Rebranding of ERT HD
On 9 February 2019, ERT renamed its HD channel into ERT Sports HD. Now its programs aim at sports broadcasting.
Current networks
By the end of the decade, Greece had five national state-owned networks, four state-owned national digital television networks, a state-owned satellite broadcast network, and several national private television networks, in addition to approximately 150 local and regional television stations broadcasting across the country. Audience ratings were handled by AGB Hellas. The private networks were six, Ant1 (after Mega's closure the oldest), Alpha, Skai TV, Star Channel and OPEN BEYOND, operating from the Attica region and Makedonia TV operating from Thessaloniki.
The reopening of Mega
The 2020s show the reopening of the Mega Channel. After Vaggelis Marinakis' purchase of the channel's archive, he managed to relaunch Mega, under the same name and with a similar format (a combination of news programs, movies and Mega's old Greek TV shows). The network resumed broadcasting on 17 February 2020.
Digital terrestrial television
In 2005, Alpha TV briefly ran experimental broadcasts in DVB-T locally in Athens, while in
Heraklion
Heraklion or Iraklion ( ; el, Ηράκλειο, , ) is the largest city and the administrative capital of the island of Crete and capital of Heraklion regional unit. It is the fourth largest city in Greece with a population of 211,370 (Urban Ar ...
,
Crete
Crete ( el, Κρήτη, translit=, Modern: , Ancient: ) is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the 88th largest island in the world and the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, after Sicily, Sardinia, Cyprus, ...
, a regional network,
CreteTV
CreteTV () is a Greek regional television station, based in Heraklion
Heraklion or Iraklion ( ; el, Ηράκλειο, , ) is the largest city and the administrative capital city, capital of the island of Crete and capital of Heraklion (region ...
, in conjunction with the
University of Crete
The University of Crete (UoC; Greek: Πανεπιστήμιο Κρήτης) is a multi-disciplinary, research-oriented institution in Crete, Greece, located in the cities of Rethymno (official seat) and Heraklion, and one of the country's most aca ...
, also started digital broadcasts.
In January 2006, the state broadcaster
ERT launched free-to-air
digital terrestrial television
Digital terrestrial television (DTTV or DTT, or DTTB with "broadcasting") is a technology for terrestrial television in which land-based (terrestrial) television stations broadcast television content by radio waves to televisions in consumers' ...
(
DVB-T) channels with three "pilot" channels called
Prisma+,
Cine+
Cine+ may refer to:
* Ciné+, set of cable and satellite television channels owned by Canal+
* Cine+, a digital terrestrial television station owned by ERT Digital
{{Disambiguation ...
and
Sport+
Sport pertains to any form of competitive physical activity or game that aims to use, maintain, or improve physical ability and skills while providing enjoyment to participants and, in some cases, entertainment to spectators. Sports can, t ...
, collectively branded as
ERT Digital. The first channel, was targeted at disabled persons, while Cine+ broadcasts movies, and Sport+ broadcasts a sports program. A fourth channel, the
Cypriot
Cypriot (in older sources often "Cypriote") refers to someone or something of, from, or related to the country of Cyprus.
* Cypriot people, or of Cypriot descent; this includes:
**Armenian Cypriots
**Greek Cypriots
**Maronite Cypriots
**Turkish C ...
national channel's satellite program
RIK sat
Cyprus Broadcasting Corporation ( gr, Ραδιοφωνικό Ίδρυμα Κύπρου , tr, Kıbrıs Radyo Yayın Kurumu), or CyBC (ΡΙΚ, KRYK), is Cyprus' public broadcasting service. It transmits island-wide on four radio and two domestic ...
, was also retransmitted on digital.
In September 2009, the seven major television stations in Greece started broadcasting in
DVB-T MPEG-4, via a company set up by them,
Digea
Digea is a Greek network operator that provides a digital terrestrial television system in Greece for seven nationwide free-to-air channels (Alpha TV, Alter Channel, ANT1, Makedonia TV, Mega Channel, Skai TV and Star Channel). In addition to thes ...
. The
digital television transition was completed in February 2015 and a total of 156 digital transmitting centres are currently active throughout the country, broadcasting nationwide and regional channels and covering over 96% of the country's population.
Cable television
The first cable television operator in Greece is located at
Kalamaria
Kalamariá ( el, Καλαμαριά, ''Port Side'') is among the most densely populated suburbs in Greece, located about southeast of downtown Thessaloniki, with a population of92.238 inhabitat History
The area was first settled by humans in pre ...
in
Thessaloniki
Thessaloniki (; el, Θεσσαλονίκη, , also known as Thessalonica (), Saloniki, or Salonica (), is the second-largest city in Greece, with over one million inhabitants in its metropolitan area, and the capital of the geographic region of ...
. Hellenic Cable Networks (www.hcn.gr) among cable internet services offers digital video broadcasting - cable and analog TV services without the need of an external STB.
Internet TV
Late of 2003 was created the ''TVonline'' which was the first television station with its own productions and broadcast its program only via internet.
Nea Kriti News
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IPTV
In 2006, two companies began offering television service via IPTV
Internet Protocol television (IPTV) is the delivery of television content over Internet Protocol (IP) networks. This is in contrast to delivery through traditional terrestrial, satellite, and cable television formats. Unlike downloaded med ...
, namely Vivodi Telecom and On Telecoms. Both of these went out of business.
They offered television service bundled with High-speed Internet & Telephony services. Their channel offerings included local Greek networks, international stations and pay-TV networks Nova Cinema & Nova Sports
Nova Sports is a Greek sports pay television network owned by Nova, a subsidiary of Greek telecommunications company of the same name. It was launched in 1994 as ''SuperSport'' and at the time was the first premium sports service in Greece. It i ...
, that were made available to subscribers via an agreement with Greek DTH provider NOVA.
In 2009, Greek Telecommunications giant OTE
OTE is the national telecommunications provider of Greece.
OTE may also refer to:
* Ocean thermal energy conversion, a renewable energy source
* Oda of Haldensleben (978–1023), daughter of the Margrave of the North March, Theoderich
* On-ta ...
launched IPTV service called '' Conn-x TV'' which was initially available in Athens, Thessaloniki, Patras, Larisa and Iraklion. Greek broadband provider Hellas Online also launched an IPTV platform called ''hol tv'' (now Vodafone TV). Vodafone TV offers all major Greek TV networks as well as news, sports, music and children's channels. It is also the first provider in Greece to offer HDTV
High-definition television (HD or HDTV) describes a television system which provides a substantially higher image resolution than the previous generation of technologies. The term has been used since 1936; in more recent times, it refers to the g ...
as well as Video on demand.
Most viewed channels
See also
*List of Greek television series
Television broadcasting in Greece began in 1966. Nevertheless, the first TV series was aired in 1970 and was the series ''To Spiti me ton Foinika'', aired by YENED. The next series was ''O Kyrios Synigoros'' in the same year. The first years of te ...
*List of Greek-language television channels
The List of Greek-language television channels includes the following channels:
List of television stations Greece Public National Channels (free-to-air, ERT)
*ERT1
*ERT2
* ERT3
*ERT News
* Vouli TV (National network with programming produced by ...
* "Prosopa" Greek Television Awards
References
External links
Guide to Greek Television Networks
Greek TV listings and recommendations
Greek TV & Movies on-line
TV channel frequencies in Greece-Attica
TV channel frequencies in Greece-Macedonia
{{Television in Europe
Television in Greece
1966 establishments in Greece
Mass media in Greece