Greek government suspends State TV, Radio

international | rights, freedoms and repression | news report Wednesday June 12, 2013 15:19 by Stuart

A modern coup? Greek national broadcaster summarily suspended with immediate effect

The government of Greece has condemned "inefficiency, opacity and scandal", suspending its (profitable but critical) state broadcaster. ERT (Hellenic Radio-Television) is the state-funded national broadcaster in Greece. The Greek government summarily suspended ERT with immediate effect last night, suspending all 2,500 employees (and an additional 250 freelancers) without pay.

ERT buildings have been occupied by the former state employees who are continuing to produce programmes for broadcast, which are being released through internet feeds and some Spanish television stations.

A petition has been started by AVAAZ at http://www.avaaz.org/en/petition/Stop_the_shutdown_of_P...reece

A modern day coup in Greece? The Colonels descendents silence broadcast critics.

The decision to close down ERT was taken by conservative Prime Minister Antonis Samaras, without discussion within or approval by parliament. The shutdown was scheduled for midnight Tuesday, but was brought forward to 11 pm in order to prevent last-minute emotional on-air statements from being broadcast.

Right-wing commentators have described ERT as scandalous, opaque and a drain on public finances - one widely-quoted statement says that ERT adds between 10% and 30% to Greek consumers electricity bills (the Greek state broadcaster is funded by a levy on electricity bills). The actual levy is in fact €4.30 per DEI (electricity) consumer per month, considerably less than the cost of a BBC licence in the UK or RTE license in Ireland. For this, the public receives 3 national television stations and 5 radio stations, including an international shortwave broadcast for overseas listeners.

Far from being a drain on the public finances, ERT is one of the few elements of the Greek public service that is profit-making, contrinuting regukar revenue to the Greek government every year.

More details can be found in various sites including the Hollywood Reporter ( http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/supporters-greek-...67499 ), with breaking comments from ERT employees on Twitter ( https://twitter.com/search?q=%23ert )

A petition has been started to support ERT state employees at AVAAZ http://www.avaaz.org/en/petition/Stop_the_shutdown_of_P...reece