ERT Digital ( el, ΕΡΤ Ψηφιακή) was a pilot project by ERT, the

public broadcaster Public broadcasting involves radio, television and other electronic media outlets whose primary mission is public service. Public broadcasters receive funding from diverse sources including license fees, individual contributions, public financing ...

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 wi ...

. It was the first legal attempt at

digital television Digital television (DTV) is the transmission of television signals using digital encoding, in contrast to the earlier analog television technology which used analog signals. At the time of its development it was considered an innovative adva ...

broadcasting in Greece, featuring four new channels: Cine+, Prisma+ Sport+ and Info+. It was officially launched in early 2006 as part of the

digital television transition The digital television transition, also called the digital switchover (DSO), the analogue switch/sign-off (ASO), the digital migration, or the analogue shutdown, is the process in which older analogue television broadcasting technology is con ...

mandated by the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are located primarily in Europe, Europe. The union has a total area of ...

. The project was funded through ERT's budget and had no

advertising Advertising is the practice and techniques employed to bring attention to a product or service. Advertising aims to put a product or service in the spotlight in hopes of drawing it attention from consumers. It is typically used to promote a ...

. In the initial phase of the program, each channel was to broadcast between six and ten hours of original programming. This would last approximately 1–2 years in which time it was anticipated that new programming would be produced for each channel. ERT also hoped to launch at least two more digital channels at some point in the future, a lifestyle channel and a children's channel. The programming on the four digital channels was separate and distinct from that featured on ERT's three traditional analogue services - ΕΤ1, ΝΕΤ and ΕΤ3. ERT Digital was available to approximately 65% of the population, mainly in

Athens Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital and largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh largest city in the European Union. Athens dominates a ...

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 ...

and some other major cities. It broadcast

free-to-air Free-to-air (FTA) services are television (TV) and radio services broadcast in unencrypted form, allowing any person with the appropriate receiving equipment to receive the signal and view or listen to the content without requiring a subscripti ...

without any subscription cost, requiring only a generic

DVB-T DVB-T, short for Digital Video Broadcasting – Terrestrial, is the DVB European-based consortium standard for the broadcast transmission of digital terrestrial television that was first published in 1997 and first broadcast in Singapore in Feb ...

set-top box A set-top box (STB), also colloquially known as a cable box and historically television decoder, is an information appliance device that generally contains a TV-tuner input and displays output to a television set and an external source of s ...

. The issue of paying for the four digital channels had been a bone of contention for many Greek citizens as ERT was funded by a fee levied on all Greek households through their electricity bills. Some contended that they should not have to pay for a service they might not be able to receive or did not want to watch.

Programming

Cine+

Cine+ (Σινέ+) features international & Greek films, cultural programmes and documentaries, mainly taken from ERT's vast programming archive. It also houses

Studio+ ERT Digital ( el, ΕΡΤ Ψηφιακή) was a pilot project by ERT, the public broadcaster of Greece. It was the first legal attempt at digital television broadcasting in Greece, featuring four new channels: Cine+, Prisma+ Sport+ and Info+. It ...

, a music show featuring Greek and international videos, that is planned to later reform to a full separate channel. Upon the launch of

ERT HD ERT Sports ( el, ΕΡΤ Sports) was a Greece, Greek free-to-air television channel, owned by the Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation, the state broadcaster of Greece. It was the first high-definition television channel in the country and started bro ...

in April 2011, Cine+ was merged with Sport+ before being replaced by

BBC World News BBC World News is an international English-language pay television network, operated under the ''BBC Global News Limited'' division of the BBC, which is a public corporation of the UK government's Department for Digital, Culture, Media an ...

in March 2012.

Prisma+

Prisma+ (Πρίσμα+) focused on entertainment as well as news & education. It is the fifth channel in Greece (it launched on 20 March

2006 File:2006 Events Collage V1.png, From top left, clockwise: The 2006 Winter Olympics open in Turin; Twitter is founded and launched by Jack Dorsey; The Nintendo Wii is released; Montenegro votes to declare independence from Serbia; The 2006 ...

). It had been planned to be the first TV channel that was fully accessible to

people with disabilities Disability is the experience of any condition that makes it more difficult for a person to do certain activities or have equitable access within a given society. Disabilities may be cognitive, developmental, intellectual, mental, physical, se ...

. Prisma+ broadcasts a programme with a variety of emissions and films. The majority of its programmes, unlike its sister channels is subtitled via

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 ...

service. Prisma+ broadcasts 24 hours a day, but its main programming is from 1:00 p.m. to 12:00 at midnight. The rest of the programming are repeats. It was replaced on its frequency by

Deutsche Welle Deutsche Welle (; "German Wave" in English), abbreviated to DW, is a German public, state-owned international broadcaster funded by the German federal tax budget. The service is available in 32 languages. DW's satellite television service cons ...

in March 2012.

Sport+

Sport+ (Σπορ+) was a sports channel covering live sporting events - mainly association football and basketball, but also other less popular sports.

NBA TV NBA TV is an American sports-oriented pay television network owned by the National Basketball Association (NBA) and operated by Warner Bros. Discovery through its sports unit. Dedicated to basketball, the network features exhibition, regula ...

programmes were regularly featured. Sport+ was merged with Cine+ in April 2011.

Info+

Info+ was a news channel and the final addition to ERT Digital. It occupied the same frequency as Sport+, in alternating timeslots. Info+ also functioned as a testbed for

DVB-MHP Multimedia Home Platform (DVB-MHP) is an open middleware system standard designed by the DVB project for interactive digital television. The MHP enables the reception and execution of interactive, Java-based applications on a TV-set. Interactive ...

RIK Sat

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 offered on the same frequency, accounting as the temporary fourth channel of the bouquet. {{Television in Greece Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation Defunct Greek television channels Television in Greece Digital television Television channels and stations established in 2006 2006 establishments in Greece